Project: The 'In leiu of a carb rebuild' 1985 Honda GL1200 EV conversion

[wrickert]

Good morning everyone!
I am in the planning stage of my EV conversion project. Doing an EV conversion has always been a dream project of mine. I recently got a new job which will give me time and funds to accomplish this finally! I am an Electrical Engineer with a significant amount of embedded experience and my previous job was working on UPS systems that could power entire buildings. I am used to working on 540V 600A DC power systems. I think all of this gives me a good background to accomplish this task.

I think a motorcycle EV conversion would be a good (relatively easy) way to start working on this topic.

I have a much loved 1985 GL1200 Honda Goldwing in my garage that has not ran in the last two years.

I was going to wait till I had something to show for my project before I posted on here but I had a moment of (wife driven) paranoia about the parts I am selecting. There seems to be less information on here for motorcycle conversion so I am kinda in the dark.

I found an EM61 Nissan Leaf motor a handful of hours away for $600. Is this a crazy choice for a motorcycle? I assume I can run at a lower speed/power and if it is wildly bad choice I can shelve it for my eventual small car EV conversion project when I have a bit more space and experience. However, there will be more hesitancy from the wife to buy the next motor if this one proves inappropriate.

What does the community think of this motor selection? Is there another common motor I can buy out of a junked car that would be a better choice?
Thanks everyone!

PS: I'm looking at buying a Prius Inverter locally this weekend as well.

[celeron55]

The Leaf motor and Prius inverter combo weighs probably like 75kg. If that's not an issue, go ahead.

Other common motor options from cars aren't much lighter than that. There are less common options from electric motorcycles and very small cars (Twizy?) that could be more appropriate.

As for inverters, you can't beat the Prius one in price.

[Mhs]

Outlander front or rear motor could be an option to consider

[arber333]

Outlander front or rear motor could be an option to consider

Why not getting Outlander motor and inverter combo and command the thing via CAN bus.
Outlander inverter has the advantage of providing 600Arms (per phase) as opposed to Prius which only has 350Arms? This translates to more power for starting...

[IanG]

I have performed multiple motorcycle conversions over the last 20 years and I tend to start with the battery, to simply work out what voltage range and capacity I can operate at within the constraints of the frame.
Something like a Goldwing has a lot of room but there are still limits. Sourcing a 300 to 400 V plug-in hybrid battery somewhere around the 5 to 10 kWh and re-packaging that at the same time as making your motor choice will get you a lot closer to success, rather than just picking a motor at this point.

[wrickert]

I've found a Highlander MGR closer to me for 1/3 the price of the leaf motor so I'm probably going with that. My understanding is that its the same unit as the Outlander.

Has anyone on the forum done a conversion on these from transaxel to spinning a shaft? Also, I'm sure I'm using the wrong terms here so advice on that would be appreciated too.

I'm planning on making a custom battery pack with new 18650 cells. I just don't think I'll have the flexibility ill need with any off the shelf solution. I also need to rebuild my lawn mower battery packs so tools needed to do this right will work for that. A new battery pack for the mower is $300. So if the battery welder I need to rebuild that pack and make one for the bike are under $300 its a mission success. We will see.

Hopefully I'll be updating tomorrow with pictures of a pile of parts!

[Scrappyjoe]

I am almost certain that a highlander rear motor is NOT the same as an outlander motor. I have never heard that before in all my time trawling these forums.

Here is the Openinverter wiki for the Toyota MGR, which is the rear unit in a highlander. https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota/Le ... axle_Motor

Here is the Openinverter wiki for the Outlander rear drive unit. https://openinverter.org/wiki/Mitsubish ... Drive_Unit

That said, an MGR might not be a bad choice - but you may not find joy if you try apply outlander knowledge to that motor.

I think IanG’s advice is good - start with the pack sizing and work backwards. What’s the point of using a motor that can deliver 80kw (the Outlander motor) if you can’t deliver the amps to make use of the capability? That said, a goldwing is a big bike, so maybe it _is_ an appropriate choice.

[wrickert]

I think my next step is to pull all the parts I can pull from the motorcycle to start seeing what space I have to work with.
Starting with the batteries is good advice. I'm currently doing some research on LiFePo4 18650 cells since I would need at least 100 of them to hit the voltage range I'm looking for. As I type this out its occurring to me that I really need to do more research on battery pack design.

I managed to pick up a MGR 2FM motor and a Prius inverter last Friday.

Here they are next to the bike they will eventually go into. Does anyone else hear Tetris music playing off in the distance?

Does anyone have any detail on doing a custom inverter? I would love to have more detail on this setup from a Youtube short: https://youtube.com/shorts/sq-ghHm946M? ... ICvLUPpYHF

Sadly, I spent the rest of the weekend cleaning the garage enough to be able to use the space to work on this. Hopefully, I'll find some time this week but its a bit unlikely.