openinverter forum

Hi All
Only recently joined and though some people here might have an interest in my project.
The car is a 2008 Subaru Legacy estate. Bought the car with a very dead Diesel engine.
Got a bit excited and bought two Smith Edison vans as source of batteries and chargers if required.
Also bought a smart roadster that had a Nissan Leaf motor installed as part of a college project.

The goal is to install the leaf motor into a modified rear subframe and install the inverter somewhere nearby.
The batteries are being distributed between two to three locations:
-Under the bonnet can fit 10-12 while leaving space for a front motor install tab a later stage.
-where the fuel tank was
-In the rear of the car spare wheel well /open space where exhaust back boxes lived.
-Battery capacity is likely around 36kwh if I use all 22 of the valence batteries.
-Charger is either reusing the EDN 7kw charger from the Edison or buying a Tesla gen 3 charger.(hoping to make use of the chademo controller also)
-Motor control is currently using a P&S board that came with the smart , but might use Damiens board at some stage.
I have some photos on Facebook here:
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A ... vdIpUFuCO0

Update:
-Rear subframe was removed from car (leaf motor placed beside car for reference) -Motor top of motor required some surgery(originally I planned for a gen 1 motor, Gen 1.5 is taller) -Subframe required some cutting to fit motor( modifications to follow) -Motor is now spinning on 60v using leaf contractor box( Currently using P&S board as that came with motor)

-Have the factory electric power steering working by injecting a can message (with kind help from Rikohm)
For the minute I'm using a Arduino nano with a mcp2515 simply sending the required can message once when key is turned to seat position. -Successfully got the valence batteries to communicate with the valence software( look at the cycle count) -Mocking up of front most battery box continues( one of three battery boxes) -Rear subframe has been modified -Test fitting to confirm all bracket locations are correct and have enough clearance

Cool, gen 2 motor and gear box will fit in the rear without modding the body. what are you planing on doing for axels? Nissan and Subaru... might be worth it to see if the races or doh cups or shafts will hybrid together.

Or see if the leaf wheel bearing bolts into the Subaru knuckle.


Subaru and Nissan have shared rear diffs forever... People often swap in Subaru r180 diffs into Z cars. Bolt in affair!

Hi , sorry for delay never saw your reply. I have some prototype axles made out of a mix of leaf smart roadster and Subaru shafts.The smart shafts have a very convenient step down that matches leaf shaft at one end a Subaru at other end. I will be getting custom set made up once prototype ones are tested and I'm happy with them.

paaa wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:55 pm Hi , sorry for delay never saw your reply. I have some prototype axles made out of a mix of leaf smart roadster and Subaru shafts.The smart shafts have a very convenient step down that matches leaf shaft at one end a Subaru at other end. I will be getting custom set made up once prototype ones are tested and I'm happy with them.

Wow awesome, so leaf inner doj ->smart roadster shaft-> Subaru outer cv joint all just fits together? Amazing. Just about getting the right length. Got any photos?

I have a picture somewhere , Im only using it to mock up the shaft lengths so they can be sent off to get a matching set made. The smart shafts I have were already cut so not as much shaft as I would like to do a good welding job. Also don't think they will balance too well compared to a custom shaft.

Got myself a Gen 2 Tesla charger and a Tesla DC-DC converter on eBay. Charger has arrived and just need to get a Tesla charger control board . Driveshafts are only being used to test fit and to measure for getting a proper set built before anyone asks.

Wow sweet project Dude! Good Read! May have to do something like this with my tesla motor. Lock the diff and attach to another diff to regear and then a divorced transfer case. I dont know... Missed the deal on the quaiffe reduction gear zero ev had. oh well... or just switch to a nissan leaf motor and attach it to my jeep transfer case... Well anyways looks great!

leman2112 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 08, 2021 6:11 pm Wow sweet project Dude! Good Read! May have to do something like this with my tesla motor. Lock the diff and attach to another diff to regear and then a divorced transfer case. I dont know... Missed the deal on the quaiffe reduction gear zero ev had. oh well... or just switch to a nissan leaf motor and attach it to my jeep transfer case... Well anyways looks great!

Off topic for this project but does your jeep have a divorced case?

no. still researching how to build one. pretty cool stuff.

Wow, just saw your FB thread. You have built up some amount of hardware to work with!
If I had the space I would probably have a few hybrid/ev shells lying around too to harvest bits from lol. Loving the Legacy conversion. ALways tempted to buy one but could never get passed the thirstiness of the engines.
Good luck with the build. Those valence batteries have done nothing if that discharge count is right. Well done.

Thanks guys, Thats not even all of the hardware fiachra. I have a complete Renault Zoe that I'm fixing and a crashed one without a battery , More parts from the Leaf( bfs vcm , pdm) An is300h inverter and a Tesla PCS on the way. I have a bit of a hoarding problem at this stage Congrats on your Audi 8E. Friend of mine had one for years was a great car. Who did you get to sign off your modifications report/engineers report?

paaa wrote: ↑Sun Jan 10, 2021 12:36 am Thanks guys, Thats not even all of the hardware fiachra. I have a complete Renault Zoe that I'm fixing and a crashed one without a battery , More parts from the Leaf( bfs vcm , pdm) An is300h inverter and a Tesla PCS on the way. I have a bit of a hoarding problem at this stage Congrats on your Audi 8E. Friend of mine had one for years was a great car. Who did you get to sign off your modifications report/engineers report?

Jaysus! That is some collection If you have a Leaf BMS that needs a good home, I would be interested in that Yeah, the 80 is a great machine, the S2 even more so. Amazing how they much body roll they still have compared, even in the Porsche built RS2's. I plan to upgrade the suspension a bit to cope with the crap roads around here. An electric mid-2000's Allroad would be perfect and another project that is in my mind. Cons though are the weight and it being quattro would reduce the range unless I had a ~60kWh battery. I'll PM you on the engineer side of things. Would be good to start building a network of certified auto engineers in Ireland who are familiar with the ev conversion community and can work together on common guidelines which in turn, will make it easier when anyone goes to their local authority for reclassification of their vehicle.

I can't say for sure until my build is complete, But I don't ever intend to use a factory transmission as it has too many losses and uses up some much useful packaging space for batteries or the like.Im hopping to return mine to 4wd again in the future but with a Toyota mgr for the front wheels. Ill have to see about the leaf BMS as I got it from a guy who bought the battery from the same car as my VCM and Inverter came from. My logic was to use it to crack the pairing data so I could do battery swaps with a can bridge. Also I wanted to try and reuse the spare leaf PDM for its charger /chademo controller but never got the time. In the meantime Dala has kindly shared how it works online. An electric allroad really does sound nice though.

Been meaning to a do an update for a long time but thanks to covid I don't have access to my car very often these days.Anyway while I had access I have been working on do some preventive maintenance seen as the subframe is out. Main jobs were to clean up any rust and then then prepare surfaces paint and rust proof the whole underbody while I'm working on it. On the bright sight I bought some nice Tesla parts to improve the build. I got a Tesla gen 1 DC-DC and a US model3 PCS to play with.

Hello Paaa, did you get this going? Would love to see an update