Sisu

The banger rally cars here in Finland, the Fiat 600s, they cut a Punto 6 speed to an ATV Diff, lathe it flat, then bolt a bell housing to it. Instead of trying to find a finite supply of 60's parts. They also use Quad/side by side CVs too. 

Interested in your gearbox combination. i ran a Fiat 750/1000 gearbox in my 500 which had a 1000cc BMW flat twin. I destroyed 3 fiat 500 gearboxes with my half a VW long block. The hope would have been a BMW 700 coupe gearbox as even with the VW top end to make it a fake 595 the Fiat 500/126 gearbox was as strong as chocolate. You were right to go for a flat 6, the fake Puch 695 that I built handled better than a Fiat as the weight is at axle height.  I found the VW 1200 gearbox to big and geared to high, I nosed around a Alfasud, Jowett and did not try a Subaru or Imp as there were none at my local wreckers at the time. It looks like the right option with a Subaru gearbox, I like that you are not averse to trying different paths as it sounds cool. 

I agree with the points made above. K jet is pressure regulated not electronic and there is no feedback to tell the system it is over fuelled. So tapping the injectors, brake cleaner all helps. The WUR is a stand alone as unlike a efi that tells the system it is lean/rich it just over fuels for a set time. Also change the fuel filter and if the internals have gummed up due to ethanol or age then it will go in the path of least resistance 

I like the idea of these being separate drive units but linked with a pretensionometer.  So if I cheap out on gas or want to park in an EV priority space its ok. It all works, but the leaf just thinks its driving down hill.  But I can Braapp braaap once I am on a bit of road I like.

I don't know if any of you have looked at EV forums, but they do have a very techie view of things, let me put it this way most of them are talking about Star Trek in the general chat. The actual mechanical or problem solving is a dead end and the broader stuff, like cooling is normally based on how they would deal with overclocking on a PC rather than a car. Nothing wrong with bringing in knowledge from another field, I am out of my depth with the EV stuff. But it I can also see the hot rodding aspect in this too.  

On 15/02/2023 at 00:44, Vintage Grumble said:

 

Derek's website is https://sites.google.com/view/leafzx/home 

I like the application of bike engined cars, as you are always limited by size, reverse, weight and not enough torque. Having had a neighbour who bought a CBX 1000 in the 80s I would lean towards a K1600, a transfer case and a fwd diff. The leaf has enough space infront of the wheel arches and bumper space to run 986 boxster front radiators. The 2013-18 Leafs have the flat floor. 

The Leaf gearbox has a reduction gear of 8:1, this limits the top speed to 140kph, the motor input is on the left, the lay shaft in the middle and the output diff is on the right, the cog you can't see on the intermediate shaft that drives the diff are the same size as the input cog. So you could swap over the centre cog and the input cog giving you a 4:1 and like most of the Leaf they used Juke, Micra,Tiida parts and so you could monkey around with combinations of different ratios once you measure the distance between the centre shafts of the input and lay shaft.  

On 05/02/2023 at 10:59, kws said:

It's an outlander, the Pajero was never EV.

It also has a motor up front; it's a dual electric motor setup. You'll have a shit time trying to get any of that working as a standalone system, unless you scrap all the control units.

This is a breakdown of a low budget ev swap using the Outlander (my mistake) rear electric motor only. 

Yes, this Fiat 500 kit is £28,000. The £22,000 kit was without the 3rd battery pack on the left.  I like the idea of hiding the charge port behind the badge. The VW ones have used the rear number plate as a way to hide the charge port. Like the fuel cap on the rear number plate of older cars or the caddi tail light. Having a charge port hidden behind a grill, badge or under the front number plate is a good idea for a classic EV conversion. Maybe even an overrider that is hinged. 

To your point about the battery fire. This is also something that should not be overlooked as this can burn your house down. The crashed cars and battery packs are a real wild card. 

this is for the Mini and I like what they have done as the diff is robust. The Fiat 500 kit you see below uses the Fiat 500/126 gearbox which is not good as they lunch the gears. The 3 Tesla modules in the boxes on the left and centre you need to find the modules yourself as batteries can't be shipped. 

On 01/02/2023 at 21:21, EpochNZ said:

I seem to hear a lot of "Use a Nissan Leaf Drivetrain" comments....are they really that easy to find?  And if they are easy to find, are they safe/cost effective?

On 01/02/2023 at 21:28, Sc@ Chi said:

Well, my 'plan' was to find a crashed one so I have a complete car to pick over - from what I've read, there's quite a few components to include if you want the functionality, like regen braking, ABS etc. Can you tell I haven't read too much yet?

Only prob is there's so many Walter Mitty types like me (dreams beyond their ability) that the prices of written off Leafs (Leaves?) is probably on the rise.

The Nissan Leaf is popular because it is simple. The earlier version has a stacked motor, controller, inverter and a heat pump. They are seperate parts bolted together. The shell is a Tiida/Pulsar and the brakes are a Juke. Lights, wipers, alarm, radio and other items are 12v and have a 12v battery to soft start the car. 

So when you unlock the car, turn it on, you will hear the click of the relays. 

Where people run into problems with Leaf swaps is making it move like a car. If you take everything from the Leaf then it does not know that its not in a leaf. But that means the dash, door handles, gear lever, controllers,  brakes.. everything. Chassis swapping a Leaf onto a similar wheelbase car might be an easier option in some cases. Be aware that there is no price or part number for the Leaf battery. It is around $8000 to Nissan so once it loses 65% the cell degradation gets higher because there is less capacity and the same draw/inputs.  

Where people run into problems is when they start stripping bits apart. So lets start with the other view, just the motor and a gas pedal. You will then have no regen because you need wheel speed to know how to calculate it. So you are going down a hill or many hills as NZ has, you need to divert the energy to the battery pack. You can't charge/discharge at the same time, so light throttle undulating terrain at a constant speed is hard. You can't just have it all going through the front cells as they will get hotter and you need to keep the pack at 17-25°C. The size of the battery has a larger thermal mass which smooths everything out. Its why they are hundreds of AA size cells in a module, rather than a block of metal. So the Battery Management System (BMS) spends the whole time monitoring cell health and keeping them in that zone as this is a chemical reaction. The charge contoller does the same and it chooses which cell gets what, cycling them and not just when it is plugged in, but also on deceleration as this produces more energy than plugging it in. You also have the added complication of driving in the rain/cold/night/fans where the 12v will be using the main battery for current so that section of needs to be drawing, while the rest is being charged as you lift off for the lights. So you need a way to manage this as heat is the killer of Li-ion. Bigger battety, more mass. Being able to plug the car into a public EV charger the controller needs to talk to the charger too. Which is why alot of aftermarket ev swaps just don't bother as this is a good way to set it on fire. If its draw is to low then you will have the charger switch off by itself. This is what most EVs were until 2008 because managing this as well as driving is really hard. Even money is no object ICON ran into real problems because it is harder to keep this large mass at a 10° range than say an engine at 90°C radiating into an ambient atmosphere at 15°C or even 40°C as there is a big difference, you just make the heat exchanger larger or increase fan speed. This is why you might get one shot out of the battery then that is it for the day and why Tesla swaps are either muted or not useable as a regular car. A Tesla is basically one big server than just a skatebord battery and a motor. 

The Mitsi PHEV Pajero has a 100hp motor in the rear as well as the engine up front, you can drive a Pajero just on the ev motor in the rear diff.  If you are looking for a donor its referered to as a rear diff at a wreckers as the whole unit is in there. The Mitsi also has its own cooling system for the motor, battery and BMS etc as this is a stand alone to a regualar Pajero rather than one that sits in between the gearbox and the engine of say a Prius and this was built around the existing Pajero old model rather than a hybrid that you have today. 

This is why I don't use Facebook 

4 hours ago, sr2 said:

It sounds wonderfully efficient but would not fly in NZ.

We have a tradition of valuing our independence and shunning being dictated to in mass.

(Although we are being  tested by our latest bespoke, virtue-signaling government!).

Independent and shunning dicators yeah right. Nothing is more Kiwiana than User pays. 

Here in Finland if you sell something, you need to recycle that old product. Be that a lathe, fridge, sofa, tv, car, beer cans or anything else that makes up your life on this convertible spaceship.

What this means is that if I buy an exhaust I can only get a refund for that Cat from the place where I bought it, no where else. We don't have them stolen as you can't sell them to a scrapyard unless you have documentation showing you own the car.  Same goes for copper or anything else. 

I can recycle stuff, say if I am demolishing a house or not consuming things. But the people who sell sofas are better equipped to handle this than your local council worker in a Hilux. 

There are a range of laws, tax write offs for each industry, like if you are a supermarket you need to have a reverse vending machine once you sell over a certain amount of products per year or booze. 

My workmate got a €1000 speeding ticket, problem was it was on a dual carriageway and he was doing the speed limit. The car that passed him was dirty so you can't see the number plates. 

The tickets are adjusted for your income here in Finland. 

The other thing is that the coloured ceramic is brittle, so it can chip if it is flexed. Brother had white headers on his 911. Still good after 8 years but outer edge where stones get it or it is holding up the muffler have made their way thru as it all hangs off the head studs, not a problem on mild steel, but this coating highlighted it. The heat management is worthwhile, they look sweet, eat 2 minute noodles for a month and do it.

I would recommend registering for the Hertz rent to buy programme. Other rental car companies have a similar thing all around the world too. Basically you rent a car for less than 3 days at a reduced rate, if you buy it they soak up the rental cost. You have no obligation to buy.

 I "tried" out a 2018 Range Rover Velar with 36,000 miles on the clock in the UK for £51/day instead of £300+/day which is the same price/day as a shitbox hatchback.

This gives you and the boss a chance to try out an SUV to see if it fits into your life day to day like can you fit into the backseat, the car park at work, how much fuel it uses in your own life and if having a reversing camera or option x is really your thing. You don't have to bullshit someone at a dealer or feel guilty for using it as you are paying for it. 

You also get to see how the interior is like after a year or two of someone using it with a zero damage waiver. The Velar had a soft seat bolster on the drivers seat, denim staining and the rear passenger outer handle needed a couple of unlocks/locks to work. 

If you want modern wiper quality you need to have adequate spring pressure that pushes the blade onto the screen. You will also have to have bracing for the wiper mechanism instead of just the shaft/nut as a modern spring will bend the skuttle panel over time as my Lanchester did and the motor and mechanism won't have enough umphf to push it. 

I would make sure you have Rainx or something similar to apply to the windscreen itself. This will stop dust leaves sticking to the windscreen as it blows off once you drive. This is a much simpler solution as the water beads off at higher speeds. There are off screen wiper blades parking used on VW split screen vans for safari windows. But these are you getting out and placing them on or off the screen not self parking. Just get a bottle of rainx

Don't give up on the Galaxie. Winter is always a tough time to be working on it. 

I have my tracker feed running off a motorbike battery that sits in the trunk next to the spare. I have a cig lighter solar trickle chatger pad that sticks to the dash if it sits outside such as the airport carpark. It has a feed from the fuel pump. The fuel pump circuit is independent of the ignition,  it primes the pump when you open the drivers door and starts the tracker regardless of the motorbike battery life as it is now receiving energy from the main battery. In order to remove it you need to drop the fuel tank and you can't do that at the side of the road without a lift as lowered cars have their benefits. 

On 24/05/2018 at 01:33, ~Slideways~ said:

On a side note, I've noticed that most people with a race car in NZ, almost always build and maintain it DIY at home. My own for example (still unfinished...), I couldn't have justified the cost of building it if I was paying labour and someone elses percentage on top of parts.

I mean I will be paying someone to build the cage, but that's just because it's something I'd prefer an experienced person do. But the wiring, exhaust, paint, body work, parts sourcing, blah blah would have cost far more if I just paid someone to do it.

Are you guys the same? Or is there some sponsorship involved?

Disclaimer: I'm just a guy that wants a fun car to take around Manfeild club days, Port Road sprints etc. Not built to any sort of rules.

 

My own experience of sponsorship has been good, look at things around your hobby and where you spend money and others do. I approached Shell to get a fuel card so i could separate my expenses. I then did a piece on my racing for their website so they could be seen in a good light and promote others to use the fuelcard for other uses. I then had traction when I asked about them reducing the amount I paid using their card for the season.

I then looked at tires and food. These were tougher as every cunt wants free tires. So I suggested a coupon promotion to them. Basically I offered 10% discount coupons out at races to everyone, they were numbered sequentially with an expiry date. I told the punters to tell me when they used it (you can use social media for this). This meant that I could show the tire guy that I was channelling money to him and should get something in return. If it didn't work then it wasn't an expense he incured. When this became popular had a chat directly with the importer as now I had a tangible black and white result. I also got my local cafe involved as we would have meet ups and he was a mate. My favourite was the supermarket to supply BBQ meat and drinks cheap. Which eventually meant they provided me with a fold out tent to work under, table to put between me and nosey people walking around nicking tools,  all for a banner that acted as a wind break. Which meant I didn't need to buy this myself, some places we sold burgers and the drinks other times fed my mates.

The only his/ hers plates I liked was 2B and NOT 2B

Go for it. Any man would understand why you bought it. The only vehicle that has more Mana would be a Tatra 815 8x8 

Yes over the next year as it gets harder to register a modified car it would be wise to sell it if you live in the UK or rethink your tastes. My only concern is that before everyone goes balls deep thinking that making your classic car electric side steps your problem. You have to bear in mind that I wouldn't want to be in a Classic car with 300kg of batteries in the boot/engine bay in a crash.