LRBen

Hi All,

I've posted some of this on the MGF register forum and the more detailed build thread is on the Open Inverter Forums. But I was just told about this section and it looks like more conversion projects wouldn't hurt.

  

This project started unofficially 2 years ago when I bought this car by accident on Ebay. It didn't make what I was expecting so my cheeky low bid ended up being enough. The next year was half spent in a shed being ignored, and half spent changing the HG only for the clutch to start slipping about 3 weeks after. Around this time last year there were some pretty big advances made over the in Open Inverter forums on hacking into hybrid components. Specifically for this project it was discovered that prius inverters are actually pretty capable power units.
So I made the decision since I was going to have to drop the rear subframe to change the clutch I might as well change the engine as well. In hindsight, would have been way easier to just change the clutch!

Main components and specs
Mitsubishi Outlander Phev rear motor. 70kW peak, about 30kW continuous rating. 190nm of torque
Prius Gen 2 inverter, with inbuilt dc-dc converter and the potential to use the hybrid charging side to charge the battery pack.
Kokam 53Ah pouch cells in an 80s1p config. 15.6kWh capacity.
Using the original gearbox.

Total cost of the project so far is just over £5,000. However I spent £3k of that on 180 pouch cells of which I will only use 80. I've sold off 20 at a reasonable profit already. So I expect the sale of spare cells to knock off a decent chunk of that £5,000. Right now I have every major component bar of the EV conversion purchased(bar Open Inverter BMS). None electric wise I do intend to get the hydragas spheres refurbed and buy some new dampers. Apart from that I expect no more major costs.

I currently have the rear subframe mostly complete. This is an older photo taken before I finished the brackets and coolant system install. The current task is striping and repainting the front subframe and then working on the battery box.