openinverter forum

Hi All,
I want to use a model three rear drive unit in my next conversion, but there is very little room in front of the rear axle line, so I may have to rotate the drive 180° and then run it in reverse.
Is this possible?.
I have searched this forum and the internet/YouTube etc. but cannot find any definitive answer.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ian

No not with any options that are available at the moment as they rely on the stock Tesla Firmware. This has limits in reverse.

You could mechanically alter the motor to be able to run upside down to achieve this with stock Tesla Firmware.

Reengineering the transmission for presumably alternate lubrication, is a long way from my area of expertise.

The alternative at the moment is an S/X rear SDU, but these are now in shorter supply, more expensive, and by all accounts significantly less powerful, 220kW compared to upto 280kW with the M3.

IanG wrote: ↑Wed Nov 01, 2023 8:45 pm
I want to use a model three rear drive unit in my next conversion, but there is very little room in front of the rear axle line, so I may have to rotate the drive 180° and then run it in reverse.

Doesn't the Model 3 rear DU hang behind the axle like the MS/X units do?

P.S.Mangelsdorf wrote: ↑Wed Nov 01, 2023 11:50 pm Doesn't the Model 3 rear DU hang behind the axle like the MS/X units do?

The Tesla 3/Y Rear drive unit has the motor in front of the axle outputs. the S/X units have the motors sitting behind the axle outputs.

that said, the S/X small drive units should be reasonably close in footprint to the 3/Y motor. I personally went with a 3 motor for my project so i could avoid running a small drive unit in reverse due to packaging issues

What about a model 3 front motor in the back, that should hang behind the axle line I belive. Probably a bit less power though.

There are no controllers out there that do just the Model 3 front motor.

If you have seen them please share.

I went down this pathway as well.....long story short I wouldn't recommend it but would be great to see somebody take a crack it it. Seemed simple at first but gearbox has helical cut gears so one side of the gearbox is designed to take more load vs the other. If you can get it to go high enough rpms in reverse and under load it could damage the unit. I believe some videos showed the reverse was around 17mph max (might be off but it was limited) and I am not sure if the ingenext solution would bypass this. Looked into flipping/etc too but oil pickup/oiling issues might be challenging. All can likely be resolved but simply fabbing up a modified frame/mounting/etc was an easier path. I ended up cutting out all my mounts and redoing it after having a nicely painted chassis....