Electric Elan

[prezoom]

A good friends son owns EV West, which does electric motor conversions. Performance wise, they run their shop BMW 325 conversion, through a Powerglide two speed transmission. They continue to participate in many of the electric car time trials, such as the one run a Laguna Seca. But for an absolute test of performance, they ran the BMW in the Pikes Peak hill climb a couple of years ago. I believe they finished 4th in class, and having the only "conversion" car and not a purpose built vehicle, was a more than credible finish. They may have done better, but they had inadequate cooling and the electric bits overheated a short distance from the finish, which caused them to slow.

One of the interesting installations they recently completed was to a Factory Five 818, whose normally installed drive train is Subaru based. I have been told they are currently working on a conversion of a Ferrari 308, which had sustained fire damage to the engine compartment. Fun stuff all in all.

[jeff jackson]

There is a chap near me in Dorset who has converted an MGF to run electric.
The car was featured in the June 2012 edition of "practical Classics" Shows how he did it, very clever.
If you would like a copy of the mag, you could contact them for a back issue on:
UK enquiries: 01858 438884
Overseas enquiries: + 44 1858 438884

Features a MK2 Lotus Cortina, just to keep the Lotus theme going....slightly.
Kind regards
Jeff

[twincamman]

i have considered electrifying my Europa but keeping the elan on the road has taken 90% of my waking time . good thing the 7 is reliable ?ed

[mcarling]

I just bought an S3 Elan FHC that I will be converting to electric drive.

Here's an update on my project. The 101 lb. electric motor going in produces 215 hp and full torque from 0 to 9000 rpm. It might be able to twist a 26R chassis into a pretzel, so I decided on a new Spyder space-frame chassis. That arrived with all new running gear, suspension, brakes, wheels, tires, etc. The body is now on the new chassis, so it's time to sell the original rolling chassis and related parts.

BTW, it's this car: lotus-elan-f19/new-1967-coupe-t30044.html

http://www.ebay.com/itm/262197258334?ru ... 26_rdc%3D1

[billwill]

Hmmm with the recent kerfuffel from the DVLA it doesn't look as if you are keeping enough of the original car to apply the title to the Electric Elan.

But I guess you are OK with that in Vancouver ?

[mcarling]

Hmmm with the recent kerfuffel from the DVLA it doesn't look as if you are keeping enough of the original car to apply the title to the Electric Elan.

But I guess you are OK with that in Vancouver ?

Different jurisdiction. Different rules.

[innesw]

Thread revival rather than a new thread.

Anybody on here know Mark Sanders? Are you already here Mark?
He is rebuilding an Elan on Instagram with an electric motor and Tesla batteries.

His tag is @lotus_elon

Looks like a nice project, well thought out and properly engineered.

Here's a link for those without smart phones and apps -

https://instagram.com/lotus_elon?igshid=rksi506rowtt

Innes

[billwill]

Impressive, it seems he plans to put the electric motor, towards the rear of the engine compartment, but it is not clear where he is going to put the batteries.


We may all end up doing this conversion if ever the Govmnt changes its mind on "be nice to classic cars" syndrome.

[Fred Talmadge]

Just get the new Lotus Evija
https://news.yahoo.com/lotus-evija-aims ... 00353.html

[Bombay Racing Green]

I suppose I had better ?fess up. I?ve just finished (on Monday) the electric conversion of my S4 Elan. The conversion was originally intended for my S2 Europa but plans changed. The Europa needs the bodywork to be repaired and painted. This will take awhile. Two months ago I replaced the slave cylinder on my Elan. When I started it the clutch bit very aggressively and something went clunk and the car wouldn?t move. The engine turned though. I suspected the clutch as I saw a loose socket head bolt sticking out from behind the clutch arm. So I pulled the engine and found the bolt but nothing wrong. It was a red herring. It was actually a sheared diff output shaft. Whilst pondering the oily lump (but beautiful) of a twin cam sitting on the garage floor I thought I might fit the electric motor from the Europa. So I did. The motor is mated to the transmission. I have used 4 Tesla model S battery modules in series to give a pack voltage of 98V and size of 20kWh. They are split into two aluminum boxes. One mounted fore and aft in the nose/front engine bay and one transversely mounted in the boot floor along with the charger. This allows me to still have a usable boot above it. The power/coolant and communication lines are run in the cavities in the sill behind the lattice work. Hole cutting is kept to a minimum. I?ve tried to use existing holes where possible. I have fitted an electric vacuum pump so the lights and brake servo are still operational.

All of this is reversible.

I?ve only had a few test drives so far. The acceleration is close to the original but I haven?t hammered it yet and I probably won?t. When people say ?watch this? in an electric car it usually leads to trouble! I?m going to try some range testing next.

The conversion was easy. What takes time is finding suitable places for the batteries. As we all know, there isn?t much space in an Elan. The Europa makes a better conversion as it is so much lighter than the Elan.

If people are interested I?ll post some photos. Al, if your friend wants to contact me that?s ok.

[elanfan1]

Photos and maybe a video link to it going would be interesting. Thanks.

[bulfin]

What motor did you use?
Thanks,
Bob

[Bombay Racing Green]

Hi Bob,

I used a Motenergy ME1616 permanent magnet ac motor with a Seven Gen4 size 6 controller. It's not a massive motor but it is very compact. Space is definitely at a premium. I have mated it to the original gearbox so I can get away with a smaller motor. It accelerates nicely in first and second from a standstill. Third is good for pottering around and fourth is good for motorway/highway cruising. It can pull away in fourth but it is sluggish and it won't move if you start on a hill! The larger motor in the Elon conversion is much bigger and more powerful. You could quite easily do away with the gearbox and go direct drive into the diff. However, I wanted to keep the speedo drive. Yes I know about the GPS driven speedos. I bought one for the Europa and it works nicely. You'd also have to make some sort of slip yoke arrangement to take up any fore and aft movement. I'm looking at modifying a gearbox tail shaft housing which will bolt onto a motor. This will keep the speedo drive and the slip yoke.

Mad busy at work at the moment so photos to follow.

[Bombay Racing Green]

As promised:

The crack above the exhaust indent was there before I got the car! Promise!

It sits quite nicely. I haven?t weighed it yet but I expect it to be close to the original.

The charge port sits where the stud from the petrol tank came out.

The control panel sits in the radio bay. Mine never had a radio fitted so still had the blank in place.

[Mazzini]

You kept that quiet! Well done! Looks most impressive. Are you going to stop grinning and show us under the bonnet?