My Bumblebee Electric, upgrading from DC to AC Options

[palmer_md]

Hello all,

I'm a long time lurker here, and I've posted a few times, but I'm starting this thread to discuss the upgrade I'm doing to my 74 bumblebee LE.

I converted the car to electric drive starting in 1995. I purchased the car in 1994 with the intention of putting in a chevy v8 or something, but after looking at what that would take I opted to put in an electric drive train. The car was sitting in a field with weeds all around and no interior, engine, transmission or anything. It took a few years to just get the car restored before I could put in the electric drive. I got the car on the road as an electric in 1997. It has been a fantastic car for commuting and it is a lot of fun to drive, but with all the lead in the car it was a bit heavy.

I decided last year that I was going to upgrade the car to lithium power which will remove about 700lbs of battery and give me more power and more range at the same time. I purchased a gearbox (BorgWarner 31-03) that is the same as a Tesla Roadster, and I got a Siemens induction motor and inverter that will give me almost as much power as the Roadster. I should end up with a little less weight than the Roadster which should allow me to have similar performance numbers...assuming I can get enough grip from the tires.

In order to fit this motor and gearbox under the hood, I'm going to have to remove the firewall between the trunk and the motor bay. The gearbox sits between the axles (obviously) and the motor will sit above it (hence the space time conflict with the firewall). This is not a problem since I've seen posts with this firewall and trunk floor removed and then triangulating by putting a bar between the strut towers and then two more from the towers down to the rear trans cross bar in the trunk. This part of the build is all pretty clear in my mind. The connection between the strut towers works perfect as an upper mounting point for the motor and gearbox. Existing motor and trans mounting locations work for the lower support.

The area where I have a question is with regard to the gearbox location. In order to put the gearbox and electric motor in the car, it installs like a transverse motor in a FWD vehicle. The gearbox is mounted slightly to the driver side of the vehicle and the motor is to the passenger side. So instead of the existing 901 getting installed exactly in the center between the two wheels, I'll have to mount the eGearDrive about 5" toward the driver side of the car comparatively, and then I'll have to put in an intermediate half shaft on the passenger side to allow for the articulating portion of the axles to both be equal length (about 5" shorter than stock). Anyhow, this is my question, and one that I thought I'd ask for help here first before heading to a drive shaft shop to get opinions. Will the suspension work well with 5" shorter drive axles. It means probably steeper angles as the suspension articulates, but I think it should work. I just don't have any experience in this area and I'm going to have to get some help with this decision before I start cutting the trunk apart to install all of it. If it does not look like it is going to work I'll have to come up with a plan "B".

I'll post some pictures in a later post, but I wanted to get the question about the drive shafts out there since I need that answered.

Thanks,
Michael

[arkitect]

Like to see some Picts, even before u change to the new lithium battery.

Dave (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

[palmer_md]

Like to see some Picts, even before u change to the new lithium battery.

Dave (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

Hey, Stockton. My car spent many years in Stockton. It was a Stockton ICE and then electric from 1997-2000 and 2005-2012. I moved to Florida from early 2000 to late 2004. Then we moved to Sacramento in early 2012. Did you catch the article about my car in the local paper "The Record"?

About a year or so after I got the car running, a reporter from the newspaper contacted me. A coworker of mine called the paper and they came out to do a story. About 9 months later the article showed up in the paper. The reporter had absolutely zero technical background and was not interested in anything technical about the car which was the complete opposite of my interest when building the car. I was not sure how well he would do writing an article about this car, but in the end I think it turned out ok. It’s definitely a human interest piece and not a technical piece.



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Originally published Monday, October 11, 1999
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Electric avenue
By Christopher Lewis
Record Staff Writer

Rule No. 1 in the as-yet-unwritten guide to driving an electric-powered car: Watch out for pedestrians in parking lots.

If you think they’re oblivious now to cars backing out of parking spaces, just wait until they can’t hear you.

Pulling out of his driveway one afternoon, Michael Palmer of Stockton demonstrated how he’s spooked a few innocent bystanders. He turned the key in his 1974 Porsche 914 and … nothing but dead silence.

Instead of vroom-vrooming to life, the car sounded like it had a dead battery. Actually, the little bugger had 21 juiced-up batteries rarin’ to go.

Like a kid working on a school science project, Palmer, 31, kept his electrical creation a secret during three years of garage tinkering. Friends and co-workers were positively electrified last month when he unveiled the Porsche during his daily commute.

“They thought I was nuts,” Palmer said. “But the reaction so far has been all positive.”

He thought the revamped car might anger Porsche purists. But the 500-amp motor, which ran effortlessly at 250 amps (about 70 mph) during a quick test spin on the Crosstown Freeway, has almost as much muscle as the original 75-horsepower engine. All for about 4 cents a mile.

“If this was a company project, he’d have a bonus that would support you and me,” said co-worker Bob Reynolds of Franrica Food Tech in Stockton, where Palmer works as an automation engineer on food-processing equipment.

“I was totally amazed,” Reynolds said. “The only noise it made was the tires on the pavement.”

Palmer’s Porsche didn’t have an engine when he bought it, either. He paid less than $500 for the beat-up frame lounging in Brent Berkebile’s front yard in west Stockton, looking like junked leftovers from a teenage gang’s Saturday night strip show.

Palmer had her towed home and dressed her up. He painted the exterior black and yellow and installed a fiberglass convertible roof.

“(Brent) kept calling me up — ‘Do you want these engine parts?’ ” Palmer said, chuckling mischievously.

Berkebile, who works at Martini’s Auto-
motive, said Palmer showed up at his house unannounced last month.

“I was eating dinner and I didn’t hear anyone (drive) up,” Berkebile said. “I thought he was just going to put a fuel-injected, 2-liter Porsche (engine) in it. I looked underneath and I said, ‘Kind of quiet, isn’t it?’ ”

He was impressed with the car’s performance. “It has a lot of pickup,” Berkebile said.

Perhaps the biggest perk is the running list of headaches Palmer can do — actually does — without: no more tuneups, valve adjustments, oil changes, radiator leaks, busted fan belts … (insert your own “no more” here). Replacing the batteries every five to six years for a total of about $1,000 is still a bargain compared to regular car maintenance, he said.

And smog checks? Puh-leeze. That’s, like, so 20th century.

The state Department of Motor Vehicles was impressed — they gave Palmer’s ride a clean bill of health and new registration.

“They just flipped out,” he said.

Palmer may blow off smog checks, but his electric car has a few reality checks. The motor doesn’t have quite the same kick going up hills, in part because the batteries pack an extra 300 to 400 pounds.

The main roadblock is the limited range — the car can go a maximum of about 100 miles before recharging. A full recharge takes about eight to 10 hours. But Palmer carries an extension cord in the trunk so he can conveniently plug in to a standard 110-volt outlet wherever.

The car runs on 20 six-volt traction batteries more familiar on putting greens than roadways. Golf carts typically run on four to five such

batteries. A smaller battery powers the radio, headlights and blinkers.

Besides the speedometer, the only instruments Palmer relies on now are the palm-sized volt and amp meters.

Several local government agencies employ electric vehicles, but they’re struggling to dent the mass market because of the high cost. The cities of Lodi and Stockton, which are exploring grants to lease electric cars, might get a charge out of Palmer’s Porsche. He researched electric cars on the Internet and purchased $5,000 worth of parts from Bay Area and Arizona companies.

The Porsche isn’t Palmer’s first project. He worked on a solar-powered car while he was a student at California Polytechnic State University. And his mountain get-away is a 1968 Ford Bronco he restored after college with a digital dashboard and computer-controlled engine.

He’s got wheels for each of the four decades he’s lived in — the Bronco, the Porsche, a 1987 Toyota Corolla (possibly his next electric venture) and a 1991 Corvette.

But the Porsche is the jaw-dropper when Palmer rolls to a stop at intersections.

“People just turn their heads and look at me funny,” Palmer said. “They are curious. Most of them have never seen an electric car. They want to know all about it.”