Stuffing a Tesla Drivetrain into a 1981 Honda Accord
jalopnik.com
jalopnik.com
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbVdaa_gKB2/?taken-by=jimmy.buil...
I don’t fly but my dad was a pilot, and he and I would sometimes visit Peter’s hangar at Whiteman airport while he was building Melmoth 2.
It's also a good money suck. Pretty easy to spend a year's pay on car mods that at best do not regress safety features nor increase your rate of speeding tickets. At worst you're looking at safety issues and additional tickets (cost).
Not judging — people have different hobbies and are free to spend their money how they see fit. If you're looking for frugal hobbies, though, this isn't it.
(Now, shadetree home car maintenance — that's a frugal hobby in a similar vein. It's a nice break from the keyboard and requires some of the same skills.)
But you're right. I have a lot of money into my car. I also have 0 tickets. It also has a roll cage, FIA approved seat, harness bar, harness, hans device, etc
Is there anything like the equivalent of a commissary kitchen, but for cars? Like a garage with tools where I could rent it for a couple of days, and then go work on it with their tools, etc?
99% of what you need to work on a car will fit in a large toolbox. It takes experience to weed out the stuff you don't actually need though. Most people make the mistake of thinking they "need" power tools.
The issue is there are two kinds of modders: those who mod for the track and those who mod for street racing. I’d bet that OP has experienced the latter and not the former, hence the negative comment.
There is a massive group of car modders who build their cars for the track. We understand that the road is not the right place to drive fast, and that there is almost no advantage in doing so. We seek faster lap times which often requires improving features of the car such as tires, brakes, suspension, stiffer anti-roll bars, gearboxes, clutch, seats, weight reduction, etc...
Edit: I have replaced diffs, springs, shocks, tires, wheels, and added a steering damper. For overlanding that is pretty minimal work. For Motorsport style off-roading, I would need to do quite a bit more.
Sigh. Any hobby you can get blokes interested in eventually turns into gadget madness...
Land Cruisers come in two main families - the rather utilitarian 70 series, favoured by the Red Cross, UN, IS and assorted civilians with a cavalier attitude towards fuel economy - and the increasingly luxurious (yet still eminently capable!) 120/150/200 series.
[0] http://m.transautomobile.com/en/export/toyota-land-cruiser-7...
A Land Rover Defender would also fit this - if you see someone driving a defender it could be a destitute farmer, a middle class mother, a millionaire footballer, or literally the Queen. It’s the most egalitarian car in the world.
And then you get to stuff like putting a Tesla into an old Honda. If you have to ask why, then you wouldn't understand.
But yes, it very easily gets to be expensive.
Perhaps the new Chinese owners jump onto the electric wave and need a good base vehicle? One can dream!
At least an electric 9000 wouldn't have the balance chain chewing up the engine block ;)
The easiest fix for the balance chain issue on 9000s is to simply remove it. It's a whole subsystem only there to counter vibrations for smoother engine operation. This speaks to your point about over-engineering, but is also an illustration of the kind of design that makes the car feel so good.
I have an ebay alert set up for such a model. Sadly although understandably they still command a high price. I've had accidents on eBay with Saabs before. Current owner of a 6 door stretch 9000. Couldn't see it go for scrap value.
https://www.nevs.com/en/ They build EV out of SAABs olf offices using a SAAB 93 as a platform. Check it out!
Another fun swap: a Tesla drive unit and Volt batteries into a Lotus Evora. Basically recreating the original Tesla Roadster's bigger counterpart.
Volt+Tesla is an increasingly popular swap because the Volt batteries are easier to manage and have a more convenient form factor. Plus, there are more of them available from recyclers.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/850bhp-aero-engined-bentley...
Was sold to Jay Leno.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvAPzGCqVG0&feature=youtu.be...
"Well I guess, if you remove all of x, y and z and made custom mounts..."
We later learned this guy ones one of those bullshitters who would lie about everything; told us he was in the national guard and hat to shoot rubber bullets at people looting stores after tornadoes. He was our age and had one of those civilian IDs they give military family members.
Next semester we ask the guy if his uncle will bring his MGB to the car show we were putting together. "Oh he sold it." .... right ...
Anytime we had some crazy idea for our cars. "I wonder if I could convert my mom's Maxima to a 5spd," the respond would always be, "I BET UNCLE BILL COULD DO IT!"
[0] The K-series is the descendant of the T16, which is the descendant of the M-series, which is the descendant of the O2-series, which is the descendant of the O-series, which is the engine that we /designed/ for the MGB, but never was put into the MGB before it was canceled. The O-Series instead went into a bunch of work vans and other hateful boxes instead.
So he might have sort of been right. But he was probably still a royal bullshitter.
Descendant only in the fact it came later. The engines share nothing from memory. The K series was an all new small capacity engine (1400cc) on release. Compared to the O, M and L (diesel) it's a fully aluminium block and head with steel damp liners. The K series had its bore and stroke upped to bring it to 1800cc after launch, along with adding variable valve control with the VCC engine.
The two engines share very little in common, the most frequent thing being they're normally both attached to a a PG1 gearbox.
Source: UK MG owner that used to own 300bhp ZR.
http://www.advanceautowire.com/mgbgtv8/ is just one that I know of. Though I only know because when I was younger, my parents had MGs, sadly my siblings all got one for graduation and I didn't. They figured I would want the computer more.
Here's one of the weirder ones - a 3-cylinder diesel into a 1970 muscle car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rxf2WZvEbc
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/worlds-first-6-rotor-mazda-...
[1] https://jalopnik.com/someone-should-buy-this-porsche-engined...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apoeGMWF17c
(And he's in Oregon! go Oregon! haha)
Acceleration to 60mph in 1.8 seconds. 1250 ft lbs of torque. This was in 2013, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CdOlX1iq_0
Also, there's the guy that built a jet engine into his Beetle:
http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/
> We get this a lot. A police officer picking at his nose while trying to figure out what to charge me with. Notice the hopeful anticipation of us on the right. We're rooting for him and offer suggestions but unfortunately, the California Department of Motor Vehicles did not anticipate such a vehicle so he's out of luck.
You have to give the California Department of Motor Vehicles (the DMV) credit for creativity on this one. A DMV insider has disclosed to me that the DMV has made a formal request to a federal agency to rule if my Beetle constitutes a threat to national security based on what could happen if it got into the wrong hands. This raises three questions in my mind: #1 Does this mean I’m the right hands? #2 If someone with the name "b_laden13" is the highest eBay bidder for my Beetle can I refuse his offer even if he has the prestigious eBay Red Shooting Star feedback rating (the highest)? #3 Would this affect my eBay rating?
https://www.omniauto.it/foto/19417/fiat-500-porsche/302209
Now (after having fitted a Ferrari engine) have made another one with a Lamborghini V12 engine (Italian, but not bad at all via Google translate):
http://motori.ilmessaggero.it/news/news_fiat_vecchia_500_pi_...
Back then the title was quite risqué.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/follow-up-report-presiden...
> It consists of a speaker mounted on the firewall between the engine and the cabin, which adds noise to the cabin in order to replicate the driving experience of older vehicles that had lower levels of sound insulation.
There's a startup, "evtones", trying to make a market in MP3 engine sounds.[1]
...unless you wanted to retrofit a Toyota eCVT onto a Model S. The Toyota eCVT is quite remarkable in combining electric and mechanical drivetrains entirely through planetary gear ratios, without any shifting. John Kelly at Weber State University has many excellent videos describing these transmissions.[0]
His videos are very detailed and also fairly slow paced so you can take your time to understand. He's done several brilliant builds already including an E39 (aka the best 5-series in my opinion), and E31 (8-series from the early 90s).
Currently he's busy with an E36 EUR1000 conversion which almost sounds too good to be true so it will be very interesting to view.
I remember my dad and I scaling up the math (I was only 10 so I needed a little help) and I remember asking him why normal cars didn’t have batteries.
I don’t recall the answer but it was long... I also was quite distracted with my new RC toy car .. err tank (google fast traxx).
I can't think of something more fun to drive, and I've driven a lot of cars. It feels completely different from a combustion engine car.
That is wholly antithetical to hacker culture. If the major tech players of the 80s treated personal computers the way auto manufacturers are treating cars today (or more appropriately for the last ten years) whole categories of software would never have existed. And cars, like the IBM PC architecture, show a seemingly inevitable destiny of the genie being put back in the bottle - for decades you could know how your car works so completely you could replace any one part by hand. In large part the same could be said of many transitionary computer systems - before systemic abstraction layers could cordon off the hardware from the user and render it wholly proprietary and black box (again) there was a short stint of time where you could get the programming manual for your chip and often diagnostic manuals for the mainboard that contained CAD documents related to it for self-repair of capacitors.
New generations of car geeks will be stymied when the cars they grow up with will be magic metal boxes that do things themselves and prevent them from understanding how they work because its more profitable for all involved if you are beholden to someone else to create, operate, repair, and improve the thing than yourself.
Just the same as how new generations of hackers will be stunted by growing up on Android and iOS devices that don't even have an included compiler or any way to install one, on locked bootloaders and proprietary drivers, filled to the brim with planned obsolescence and non-removable batteries and body frames designed to disintegrate if you force it apart to see whats inside.
Thats not to say nobody will push car culture forward the same way hacking won't die, but large corporate interests have certainly done their best to put up all the barriers they can to prevent anyone from developing an interest.
The Corvair totally smokes the muscle car. I only recall a couple of seriously built cars being that fast. Corvair guy dies his victory lap, comes back to the starting line, stops and turns on his dome light. He’s got a Pontiac 428 where the back seat used to be, a 2 speed automatic is hooked up to a static rear axle via chain drive. Absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and ROI.
Get the parts out to DIY'ers. Don't make enemies right out of the gate?
Plus--some of these rebuilders are brilliant.(This guy who out a electric engine in a Honda--for one.)
I know the legal aspect, but just put a disclaimer on the part, like the rest of the them?
So many people are buying high ticket items, but can't repair the item then it breaks.
I guess it's the way the wealthy think? I don't have that luxury. I buy second hand stuff the haves discard.
If I buy something, I should be able to fix it when it breaks down. I'll sign whatever legal papers you this at me. Fool me into thinking your company isn't violating The Sherman Antitrust Act?
I've been poor all my life, and just don't like Authorized Repair Centers touching my stuff, at their outrageous prices. Especially when that joke of a warranty ends.
To the guy who just bought a $25,000 Rolex watch this weekend.
When it stops, and is out of warranty, you will not be able to repair it yourself. Even if dad taught you how to repair watches from a early age. You can open it, but buying a part from Rolex is something you can't do.
How did I go from Tesla to Rolex? Just a bit off tonight?
I do feel like I'm alone though. In the end, I just don't like the feeling I'm being fleeced, and then telling me, "Oh, it's for Quality Assurance. We care about you."
Therefore, no parts/drivetrain unless they’re going into vehicles that can command the necessary premium. It’s not a legal issue; if you want the parts, you’ll need to buy the whole car and tear it down.
I believe those come from wrecked cars.
Of course, the person in the article probably went low-level enough into the parts not to need the Tesla's software activated, and that's why he didn't manage to run afoul of this.
Searched, it is Bosch.
https://electrek.co/2017/01/11/bosch-electrification-drive-u...
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0MXPq8LLhU
I guess this is the modern equivalent?
But damn it's an expensive hobby to even own an older car - let alone mod it.
This won’t be his last electric build, either. Next up, he’d like to build a full-size version of an RC10 radio control car. That’s our kind of toy, for sure.
Here is a porsche they did https://www.momentmotors.com/porsche/