My Dusty 71 GMCe Electruck

[Rich84]

Wow! I didn't see this coming.
Mom's on board with this?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Rich84

Wow! I didn't see this coming.
Mom's on board with this?

ha ha, well I am currently suffering from TMT syndrome, Too Many Trucks, I already sold one, and have another 90% complete (minus the windows in my garage at my house, YES it is rain season, and yes the brand new windows are resting on the dining room table, waiting to go in, ha ha)

I say this because Dusty is back at my mom's house in her garage, she would rather have her Honda Civic in there as it has developed a windshield leak, see thread below:

Gotta replace this for my mom and why I despise modern cars - Honda Civic this time

Land The Plane Greg!

so I'm sure Mum is down with it, but I am NOT converting Dusty to electric in her garage, I need it back at my house, so when I feel a moment of inspiration at 2am I can prance out there in my jammies and Tweety bird slippers and stare at it for as long as it takes, know what I'm sayin'?

[Dieselwrencher]

Enjoy it. I won't do that until it isn't an option. It's just against my hot rod standards.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Enjoy it. I won't do that until it isn't an option. It's just against my hot rod standards.

Oh I hear you, but do you like Horse Power and instant Torque?

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by Gregski

Oh I hear you, but do you like Horse Power and instant Torque?

I do, along with cool noises.

[Blue GMC]

Now you sucked me in been thinking about doing something similar as well

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Blue GMC

Now you sucked me in been thinking about doing something similar as well

ha ha, awesome so I started stock piling the parts starting with a 2010 Lexus GS450H transmission, which I scored on eBay for $700 bucks and FREE Freight shipping (meaning you best have a buddy with a company that has a loading dock and a friggen fork lift, I found out later)

Here is a link to my FIRST project video the sound quality is horrible (but if you crank up the volume all the way you can almost hear it, I apologize for that). I went out and bought a mic for my second one. I had to get the stuff out of my wife's car so I could go and pick her up from the airport that very day, little did I know the Blue Angels must have been in town that day practicing their touch and goes right over my house. It also must have been the National Mow Your Lawn day as it seems all the odds were against me.

So when it comes to Electric Vehicle Conversions most folks want to know two things:

1. How much did you spend? ie Cost
2. How far can you go? ie Range

so here we go let's keep a Running Total:

Transmission: $761 with tax and license, ha ha
============
TOTAL: $761

[Gregski]

So for those of you intimidated by doing an Electric Conversion, it only takes these Six Major Components, and I will show you the parallels to gasoline powered cars where applicable.

1. Motor vs Engine

2. Inverter

3. Controller vs ECM/ECU/PCM

4. Battery Pack

5. Hall Effect Throttle Pedal vs Drive by Wire Throttle Pedal

6. Battery Charger

Using a rear wheel drive classic car or truck as an example:

We still keep the radiator as majority of those components tend to be liquid cooled (motor, inverter, controller, some battery packs, and some chargers)

We also keep the transmission (in my case I have a Unicorn, the motor lives inside the transmission, technically there's two electric motors inside of that bad boy)

We keep the driveshaft

We keep the power steering but will drive it with an electric pump

We keep the vacuum brake booster but will use an electric vacuum pump

We even keep the 12 volt car battery, yup an electric car still needs a regular dime a dozen car battery, all 12 volt electronics, lights, windshield wipers, stay the same

Heater can be replaced by an electric element

AC in my case is NA I don't need no stinkin' AC (till I do in the summer time, ha ha)

Everything else get's deICEd

ICE = Internal Combustion Engine

[Gregski]

since that transmission has a funny looking output shaft joint and not the TH350 universal joint looking thingie I am used to, I decided to buy the spinny stick as well

looks like a two piece with a center support, that was another reason I got it so that the weight would not be supported by the transmissions output shaft alone

[I'm just Super Smart like that, ha ha]

Transmission: $761 with tax and license, ha ha
Drive Shaft: $125
============
TOTAL: $886

[Gregski]

and I also read about how I have to lock the input shaft in order to get Motor #1 to spin the output shaft along with Motor #2 so I bought the flywheel looking disc just to cut the center piece out of and make some sort of a lock it up coupling

Transmission: $761
Drive Shaft: $125
Flywheel: $125
============
TOTAL: $1,011

* item prices include B.S. fees such as shipping, tax, and license, ha ha

[Gregski]

Rules Of Acquisition

Are no different than doing an LS Swap, buy as much junk from the same donor vehicle as possible to ensure proper fitament.

... and wrecked is good, means no mechanical issues like a bad motor or a bad I don't know... transmission! ha ha

[Gregski]

so far all those parts came from the same eBayer seller, a really nice chap willing to work with me and shoot some pics over now and then knowing I was long distance

since WE are using an AC motor and DC batteries we need some sort of box to take the Direct battery Current and invert it into Alternating motor Current, if there only was such a box, perhaps called an Inverter

this was not listed on eBay I just asked if the transmission seller had a matching 2010 Lexus GS450H Inverter, which he did for $250 = Score!

Transmission: $761
Drive Shaft: $125
Flywheel: $125
Inverter: $250
============
TOTAL: $1,261

* item prices include B.S. fees such as shipping, tax, and license, ha ha

[Dieselwrencher]

Will you work on a way to generate juice to charge it's self while driving after you get it up and going?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Will you work on a way to generate juice to charge it's self while driving after you get it up and going?

eh? whatchu talkin' about Willis?

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by Gregski

eh? whatchu talkin' about Willis?

Are you going to put a small block in front of this trans, or just a giant electric motor? Real electric vehicle, or hybrid? By the parts you have collected I'm assuming you are going full electric, no mule engine. My earlier question was asking if you plan to try to come up up with a way to have the vehicle charge it's self once you have it operational? You know, so you don't have to plug it in or walk when your 100 miles runs out.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Are you going to put a small block in front of this trans, or just a giant electric motor? Real electric vehicle, or hybrid? By the parts you have collected I'm assuming you are going full electric, no mule engine. My earlier question was asking if you plan to try to come up up with a way to have the vehicle charge it's self once you have it operational? You know, so you don't have to plug it in or walk when your 100 miles runs out.

gotcha, 100% electric, and the transmission is the motor(s), no other motor needed, there will be nothing mounted in front of it ��

[Kronald_70GMC]

Sounds like you could use the engine bay like a trunk then

[Gregski]

oh yeah, almost forgot this transmission has two oil pumps in/on it, there's the internal mechanical one and an external electric one (cause why not, right? lol) the electric one is what circulates the trans fluid when in 100% electric mode, keep in mind the transmission came out of a hybrid vehicle meaning it had both a conventional gasoline powered engine and an electric motor

well as we are learning anything electric needs some sort of brain to control it, so this electric pump requires a controller, so I got one of them too, yup from the same eBayer

Transmission: $761
Drive Shaft: $125
Flywheel: $125
Inverter: $250
Oil Pump Controller: $150
============
TOTAL: $1,411

* item prices include B.S. fees such as shipping, tax, and license, ha ha

[Blue GMC]

Another question what is the hp and torque you are expecting to get out of this set up?

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Blue GMC

Another question what is the hp and torque you are expecting to get out of this set up?

according to the Wiki the MG2 (Motor Generator #2) alone is rated at 147 kW or 197 hp, keep in mind there are two motors in that transmission, MG1 and MG2.

MG1 does not spin the output shaft in it's stock OEM implementation (so there are no hp / torque spec readily available for it) it is also smaller than MG2, but even if it is only half as powerful then both motors combined in my EV Conversion spinning the output shaft would yield 300 hp minimum

I will try to get the torque numbers

[Gregski]

I also scored a BMW 530e hybrid battery pack

although it is small at 9.1 kWh (killer watt hours) compared to the Nissan Leaf for example of 24 kWh it is what I call full voltage since it can deliver 351 volts, (pronounced: Awesome)! perfect for testing and experimentation and may make a great power wall for a home solar panel project later on

think of kWh as gallons, as in fuel tank capacity, so a 9.1 gallon tank is smaller than a 24 gallon tank

I actually paid $700 for it, but since I wanted the original OEM battery high voltage orange cables, the price went back up to $900, but I was fine with that

drove 7 hours to Los Angeles to pick it up

[Gregski]

so this battery pack actually has six 60 volt cell modules inside of it

think of cell modules like regular car batteries, technically a car battery is a cell module made up of six individual 2.1 volt cells or something like that maybe higher

[Gregski]

so let's talk range, we leased a 2013 Nissan Leaf for three years and loved it, it came with a 24 kWh battery pack and provided 85 mile range consistently, often times 90+ but we will go conservative and use the range that is on the Wiki of 75 miles

so we take 75 miles and divide it by 24 and that gives us 3.125 miles per kWh

then we take 3.125 and multiply it by my battery pack size of 9.1 and we get a range of 28 miles

now I can easily reconfigure my battery pack and shove one in the engine bay and two more under the bed, if I choose to use this technology, I may get a Nissan Leaf 30 kWh battery pack instead, don't know yet (that one has a range of 107 miles according to the Wiki)

keep in mind that the range is not a hard cap, you come home from work plug it in and the car charges while you eat or shower, then you jump back in it and drive, if you go shopping at Target, you plug it in to charge while you are at the store for 45 minutes and you top it off again, go to dinner, charge it while you eat, this is not hypothetical either we did just that, we charged while watching a movie in the movie theater

[BigBird05]

But the truck has a lot larger coefficient of friction.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by BigBird05

But the truck has a lot larger coefficient of friction.

True, and the aero dynamics of a brick. Yes I know we are comparing apples to bowling balls, that's why I am using a factor of 3x instead of the widely accepted 3.5x

and I am a firm believer in doing and testing, I don't like assumptions and speculations, so we shall wait and see