What to look for in electric conversion donor vehicle / requirements for conversion power steering/brakes/transmission etc.

[EvHonda913]

I'm thinking of buying a car to remove the engine and transmission etc. and everything else possible eventually hopefully I think. I'm looking for the easiest and cheapest strategy to a working ev conversion, I'm fine with it not reaching highway speeds just yet also and I think I might wait to upgrade a bit further to get to that point a bit later on, or maybe try to work on another that's nicer a bit eventually etc.

If I'm looking for a donor vehicle then it doesn't need a working engine or transmission etc. I would assume then? I do need to get an electric workaround for the hydraulic steering pump and the brake vacuum pump I believe, but I'm not sure exactly what that entails just yet, (looking at the ibooster or other brake booster type components maybe? And maybe an electric power steering pump if needed still, I've heard the ibooster's can have both steering and brake pumps in one sometimes at least but not sure if that's always true etc. and they maybe make some that do both also) I looked a bit and heard you can use a 1 speed - gearbox even to provide power to the wheels, as production ev's often enough only have one gear already anyway, and it seemed easier potentially than connecting to the transmission. So I did look into it a bit but I want to cut down on the time it takes to search the forums forever to get a list going, as I'm sure everyone needs to know and I thought it might be fine at least then to just try and get a list of everything together as it might be something people are looking for often enough anyway.

So my questions maybe do I only need to replace the hydraulic pump for the original steering potentially, and maybe the vacuum pump for the brakes maybe, sometimes at least? What should I look for/ ask about in the donor vehicle to make sure the brakes/steering will work enough as a starting point to do the conversion? Do all the ibooster's work as a power steering motor and a brake motor? So then can I just use one of those and hook it up and get the donor vehicles brakes and steering working, get a motor/gearbox etc. (I've heard you can use the existing transmission but that seemed complicated and like it might take a while to figure out, and that alot of ev's only use one gear anyway so it's maybe fine to do so, so I'm thinking of just using a 1 speed- gearbox instead maybe) for power to the wheels, and mostly be done? Enough to drive the car at least etc., maybe? I guess some of the electrical might need to be rewired, but it sounded a bit like they could just be rewired and one wouldn't need any additional components etc. at least maybe?

So what do I need to ask about for the donor vehicles steering/brakes etc. maybe? Maybe could there be electrical problems maybe that I might need to worry about? Do the brake booster type kits work only as a booster as it sounds like a bit sometimes, or can they be used on their own I think I keep hearing a bit, and will an ibooster/brake booster work on any model car, or what should I be looking for maybe?

If I buy a 1-speed gearbox to connect to the drive motor, how do I get the motor connected to the gearbox, and then the gearbox back to the car? I've heard the term coupling a bit and seen it while looking at another type of project, and they used couplings to connect the motor shafts to whatever else they needed to be connected I will need to find a motor mount and maybe mounting hardware for the gearbox to hook the motor up under the hood or etc. probably I would assume, is there a way to do it without buying or having hardware made, maybe I can connect everything to something that's in the car already?

I appreciate the help and look forward to any replies I can get, any thing that I might need to know maybe, and we'll go from there, I'm not sure there's not a thread that one can start with that spells everything out from the beginning but maybe it would be nice if we could put one somewhere maybe, just to make sure we don't miss anything and maybe it could save some time etc

So maybe let me know if I'm heading in the right direction and maybe what else I need to know about all of the above, also how do I find out more about a particular vehicle if I wanted to do a conversion on it, should I just put the car and "ev conversion" into the search results or are there resources people know of already that would maybe be helpful also etc.

Thanks in advance and I appreciate the help of course, anything else that you can add would be helpful. I'll try and see what else I can find also that I might need to figure out, and put those questions also once I figure out what I'm supposed to be looking for etc. I appreciate the help and etc and any thing else that we can add of course feel free to do so, I'll keep checking back and maybe adding anything else I can figure out. Thanks in advance for the help, and I'm looking forward to all of everyone's replies, feel free to add whatever you think we might need to know etc. or anything else, and maybe if you have a better solution to any of the problems I put down in the post I made feel free to add those as well, or anything else you might want to etc.

 

[scianiac]

The easiest and cheapest EV conversion will be to start with an EV like a Leaf with a dead battery. The only cost effective conversions I've seen involve lots of clever scrapping and getting good deals on used parts, often used EV parts which are probably more expensive than just starting with the whole used EV and fixing it. The only other maybe close option I think is if you are building a very very small and light car bringing the cost of all the parts down and still using used parts.

Now if an easy and cheap EV is not your actual goal then there are a lot of other ways to go about things. Like if you want to do it for the fun of building it then increase your budget and start with a car you like. Maybe I'm cynical but from my experience and watching other people build projects, starting with I'm going to do it as cheap as possible usually results in some combination of never finishing it, the end result being crap, it being so much work and hassle from trying to use junk it's not worth it, or you end up spending way more anyway. Now there are exceptions but there is a difference between I want to do it as cheap and easy as possible and I want to do it good but on a budget. That is you spend the money where it's worth it and not where you can save some.

 

[amberwolf]

Some thoughts, from someone that's dived off the deep end into assorted projects of various technologies over the decades, and drowned in some of them after concussion against the end of the board (while successfully coming up with results in others; some I'm still figuring out which way is up to head toward the surface for some air):

If your purpose in this is to learn a bunch of different technologies and have the fun of building the whole EV yourself, then don't worry about the following. But if your purpose is to get a working EV as quickly and/or cheaply as possible....


From the wording / etc of your post, It sounds as if you might not have done much mechanical or electrical DIY? Nothing wrong with that, but if you've never done any kind of conversion or EV stuff (or regular ICE vehicle work?) then you may find a conversion like you're talking about overly complex and expensive, and unless you're really determined or desperate it may well become another of those projects that gets sold on to someone else partway thru.


If you can machine your own parts, you can save some money; otherwise you'll probably be spending a fair bit of money buying prebuilt parts from companies that have already created them for specific types of conversions, and limiting yourself to what those parts support conversions from and to.

If you can design and build your own battery packs, you can save some money, otherwise, again, you'll probably be spending it to buy batteries / systems already built from companies that are well-known / reliable for doing large-EV batteries. (no, I don't know any specific ones).


It's quite a bit easier to go the route Scianiac suggests. It might be just as much fun, and might be a good starting point for a more custom EV if you find the first one less than what you want or need.



So....let us know which way you want to go, and we can start helping with details (though this will begin with what might seem like a lot of questions, rather than very many answers).

 

[99t4]

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