Rolls Royce with a Tesla Drivetrain

[Hank]

Someone had to do it, so I guess I'll be the idiot to pull it off.
[*]One perfectly good 78 Silver Wraith (check)
[*]One brand new Tesla Sport LDU (check)
[*]One fabulously designed open sourced control board (check)

What could possibly go wrong?

[Kevin Sharpe]

Cool project

[mattndex@gmail.com]

This is going to be interesting.

[clanger9]

Loving this one!

[Bentto]

Yes!!

[Hank]

OK, so I'm starting the shopping spree....
I have the Car, the LDU, and Damien's controller.
I purchased the 23 pin 12v control harness, and the 4 wire plug/harness.

I'm going to be using Tesla S batteries, full pack.

Step one will be to build out my test bench, and therefore my precharge circuits etc.
I need a bit of advice on contactor models, resistors, and whatnot. I don't want to gold plate this thing, but I'm not looking to cut corners either.
Ev-west has a few contactors, they look very similar to me at first glance. Gigavac GV200 in 3 varieties for instance....couldn't even begin to tell which features matter for my application. Are there better ones out there? I don't know.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[57 Chevy]

I'm going to be using Tesla S batteries, full pack.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cool project!

The battery is about 600kg and you may have to cut out and remake a lot of the floor to fit it in. It'll quite likely too wide for the Rolls too, S is a massive car. You may be required to keep the GVM under the max for the stock Rolls so bear in mind you could possibly lose the rear seat and passengers if you want a big battery. Good thing is they have the contactors and pyro fuse built in so plug in and you are in business with a bit of CAN knowledge. The connectors are special so you'll have to buy the rear HV junction box plus the LV connectors off the car loom to get the comms and power going

I can get you measurements if you need, picked up this one on the weekend to use the LDU along with another one in an awd 57 Chevy


Main piece of advice I'd give you is don't cut anything off until you are fully committed financially and emotionally to the project, otherwise you run the risk of having an unusable/unsaleable car if your situation changes in a year or two and you find you don't have the resources to finish it.

[Kevin Sharpe]

I'm going to be using Tesla S batteries, full pack.

A Model S pack 3D Model is available if you want to check some dimensions;

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=123&p=8153#p8153

However, I'd recommend using the Model 3 pack which is much smaller, lighter, and cheaper

[Hank]

Sorry, I was unclear there. I didnt mean I was going to literally use the Tesla pack itself, but that I would be purchasing a full set of the 16 or so batteries that the Tesla comes with, and using them to build my own custom pack.

Apologies.

[Igor]

I have nothing to add. Except to say that this pic is amazing!

[deaglan]

Have you a plan for the hydraulics?
Brake and ride height system run off cam-driven pumps, and it’s a specific fluid, so can’t easily replicate.
There’s a good overview here (https://www.rrsilvershadow.com/Emenu/hydr.htm)

I think if you did put a full Tesla battery pack in the car, it might be the first EV conversion to increase range!

[Hank]

Have you a plan for the hydraulics?
Brake and ride height system run off cam-driven pumps, and it’s a specific fluid, so can’t easily replicate.
There’s a good overview here (https://www.rrsilvershadow.com/Emenu/hydr.htm)

I think if you did put a full Tesla battery pack in the car, it might be the first EV conversion to increase range!

Yes...I have done a ton of research on these cars. One of the reasons I bought it is because other people fear the hydraulics, which makes them a good deal if you don't care about keeping it stock.....which clearly isn't an issue for me.

[Hank]

So one of the things that I like about this project is I can build out and test my new drive train without needing to destroy my perfectly running car in the process. So for the past few weeks, I have been shopping, and assembling the stuff I would need to setup a solid test bench. Hat tip to Roadstercycle for his YouTube video of his bench test setup, it gave me a real good idea of what I needed to do to get a bare bone system up and running.
One of the best finds was a 23-pin harness that was only around $50 online somewhere. Saved a bunch of time not having to build my own, especially since it was just going to exist on my bench.
Enjoy the wire porn....

[ZooKeeper]

Someone had to do it, so I guess I'll be the idiot to pull it off.
[*]One perfectly good 78 Silver Wraith (check)
[*]One brand new Tesla Sport LDU (check)
[*]One fabulously designed open sourced control board (check)

Let me be the first to challenge the "idiot" idea; Loon? Maybe.

And while not 100% sure on this, I doubt the world have ever seen a "perfectly good 78 Silver Wraith".. LoL

[ZooKeeper]

I think if you did put a full Tesla battery pack in the car, it might be the first EV conversion to increase range!

OMG, I nearly p!ssed myself!!!

[Hank]

Got the motor on the stand, swapped the board, plugged in the wiring harness, got precharge contactor behavior as it should be, logged in to wifi and saw the web page.

Not a bad days work.

[Bentto]

Very impressive!

btw, what labelprinter are you using? Looks nice.

[Hank]

Thanks, the label maker is a Rhino 4200 by Dymo. Bought it on Amazon for around $60.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005M ... UTF8&psc=1

[Hank]

Found a bit of rust in the floor after removing the engine....things escalated quickly from there.

[celeron55]

Looks decent, considering the age.

[Maker_of_Things]

This has just reminded me of this Rolls Royce Tesla.

[Hank]

Passenger floor pan removed, new floor pan loosely fitted. Should get me through another 40 years.