[DRIVING] 1998 Nissan Frontier Minitruck - LEAF 40kwh

[EVSwap]

The car is legal now! I helped Dave get it all taken care of this morning. He opted for the new Colorado EV plates so we have paper tags for the time being. Registered as an EV and exempt from emissions testing! He also got it fully insured at an agreed-value so he's worry free about driving it anywhere he wants.

[johu]

Great, congratulations
Is there any kind of inspection or just paperwork?

[EVSwap]

Mostly just paperwork. There is an inspection but it's mostly to verify the VIN and check for theft, though they do make sure it's been converted.

[EVSwap]

Truck needs a few more interior parts like a seat belt plug and front section of carpet. Dave is getting the headliner professionally refinished by the guy who did the seat so that should look great. Putting some Dynaliner underneath it on the roof as well. The doors make a bunch of noise so I'll be adding Dynamat to them.

Truck got a full brake job front and rear with a pair of reman calipers on the front. Repacked the front wheel bearings with new grease and seals. Full brake fluid flush. Dave also changed all the bulbs in the whole truck to LED including an LED flasher module.

Truck weighs 3207 lbs right now, but will gain a few more pounds as we tidy up the rest of the vehicle. Original vehicle weight was 3000 lbs or thereabouts.

Been putting some miles on it and it drive awesome. It's extremely efficient I can already tell. Also at WOT it pulls over 125kw instead of the 110kw advertised!

[Sector7e]

Where did you get the coolant line adapters from?

[EVSwap]

Where did you get the coolant line adapters from?

The silicone reducer is from here: https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/produ ... CVEALw_wcB

Then Dave got a 1" to 3/4 brass reducer at the local Ace.

[jrbe]

https://www.verociousmotorsports.com/Sh ... e-reducers are good too.

[EVSwap]

Got the speedo working. The truck has a speed sensor on the rear diff and also one on the transmission. I didn't realize the one on the diff is for ABS only so I had to add some wiring for the 240SX transmission. Don't know if it's accurate yet but it is working.

Road testing has uncovered a few bugs. Brake pedal switch is sticking on which causes the throttle to stop working until it frees up. Going to replace the switch with new. There is a vibration in the tailshaft above 65ish MPH. Doesn't matter what gear or motor RPM it comes and goes with speed only. It's not a very big vibration but it's enough to make me want to fix it.

Other than that she's running smoothly.

Buddy brought by his 62kwh LEAF and we compared them. The Frontier is longer and a hair taller but most importantly several inches narrower and a few hundred lbs lighter.

[Sector7e]

The silicone reducer is from here: https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/produ ... CVEALw_wcB

Then Dave got a 1" to 3/4 brass reducer at the local Ace.

I found this adapter on Amazon that can be cut to fit with less fittings:

Sealproof Universal Pond Tubing Pump Fitting, 30 Configurations, Works with Most Pumps, Fish Safe, Black, 2-Pack https://a.co/d/6qemFeA

Hopefully this will stand the test of time. What do you think?

[EVSwap]

I found this adapter on Amazon that can be cut to fit with less fittings:

Sealproof Universal Pond Tubing Pump Fitting, 30 Configurations, Works with Most Pumps, Fish Safe, Black, 2-Pack https://a.co/d/6qemFeA

Hopefully this will stand the test of time. What do you think?

PXL_20240608_023605860.jpg

PXL_20240608_023614835.jpg

PXL_20240608_023636451.jpg

Dang that's cool! It says for ponds so it should be durable it just depends if it can withstand the chemicals in coolant.

[EVSwap]

Well I feel dumb. This entire time I have been trying to make the vac pump stop oscillating nonstop. I replaced hoses and fittings and even changed the vac pump. The whole time I simply had the vac switch on the wrong side of the check-valve! Wow. Just realized while I was falling asleep the other night.

I also moved the pump off the firewall down to the inner fender so it's practically inaudible from the driver's seat now. I also added a delay relay to run the pump 1.5s after the switch opens.

In other news the Frontier was featured on Hackaday yesterday, so cool! Big thanks to whoever made that happen!

https://hackaday.com/2024/06/11/from-ni ... eaf-heart/

Check valve located near booster, doesn't work:

Check valve located near pump, does work.

[Bratitude]

The fact the full stack fits, AND it’s lighter than a stock leaf is amazing.

Seems like a perfect candidate to start making full kits for

I wonder if there’s a certain trans that has the bellhousing face sit farther forward, as the full stack does not fit in my 720.

[EVSwap]

I agree, @Bratitude, It's just so clean and fits really nicely. Do you think you could fit the full stack in your 720 if you did away with the original transmission mounts and just remounted it a bit further forward? Then you could just extend the driveshaft to make up the difference.

Speaking of driveshafts, some updates. Dave came by yesterday and took the Frontier for the weekend, his son is visiting and he wants to go enjoy the truck with the amazing spring weather and greenery on father's day. First place he took it was his friend's mechanic shop. I'm a little miffed that the first place he took it was to another mechanic to scrutinize my work but that's ok. They did uncover that the driveshaft is bent about 1/8 inch which is where the vibration is coming from. Glad that they caught that! Dave will bring it back to my shop Monday or Tuesday and he's leaving town. He'll leave me with a list of stuff to fix, no doubt. They went on a joyride for 20-30 minutes and Dave said his friend absolutely loved the truck.

He traveled about 25 miles on that first stint and used only 15% of the battery, arriving with 85%. Dave is installing his L2 EVSE at his house today.

Before he took it I did get all the seatbelts fully hooked up and reset the airbags. We got lucky and found the missing passenger seatbelt receptacle in the pick n pull. Now the truck has seating for 3!

I also just hit the easy button and installed a Dakota Digital speedo correction device (https://amzn.to/4c3j8py) and calibrated the speedometer with GPS.

Isak at Resolve-EV hooked me up with some new firmware which corrected the 204C error on the display.

So we're working on just the last few % to complete the truck. Dave is ordering some window trim pieces and we got some replacement carpet on the way. Dave also go the headliner off to be recovered and then we can install that.

Lastly, we got the metal EV plates!

[EVSwap]

Dave sent me pics of his charger setup at home. He won this slick ChargePoint EVSE setup in a DEVC raffle about 2 years ago.

[EVSwap]

Dave dropped off the car today after his weekend joyriding. Looks like he put over 200 miles on it since Friday. His son helped him set up the android head unit and customize it to his liking. So far he is like a little kid on Christmas! Really happy. He had a few issues and kept a list so I'm going to tackle those this week. Really happy that it worked out for him this weekend!

[Bratitude]

I agree, @Bratitude, It's just so clean and fits really nicely. Do you think you could fit the full stack in your 720 if you did away with the original transmission mounts and just remounted it a bit further forward? Then you could just extend the driveshaft to make up the difference.

pulling the trans forward and down would allow it to fit, but I’ll have to make a cut out in the steering link as the motor sits a few inches about it.

I may put a gs450h drive train in

[EVSwap]

Come see the Frontier EV at Electrify Expo Denver this weekend!

Got the Speedhut tachometer installed in the Frontier today. So cool! Can't wait to go drive and test it out. So far it works in the workshop free revving.

pulling the trans forward and down would allow it to fit, but I’ll have to make a cut out in the steering link as the motor sits a few inches about it.

I may put a gs450h drive train in

Just a reminder the transmission I'm using is from a mid-90s 240SX, it does seem to be shorter in height and longer than the original transmission. It is stamped 71B and the other numbers I googled came back to 240SX.

[EVSwap]

Turns out 1st gear is good for 65 MPH at 10,000 RPM! In 2nd it can cruise easily at 75 MPH at 6,500 RPM. Almost feels like we need shorter rear-end gearing to get the full potential out of it.

Using the tachometer I was able to confirm the final drive ratio is 3.7:1, which is correct for this make/model and that the ratios of the 5-speed match up to the 240SX transmission (1st- 3.321, 2nd- 1.902, 3rd- 1.308, 4th- 1.000, 5th- 0.759).

Just based on this data 1st gear is too short to get to highway speeds and 2nd gear is too tall to fully utilize the powerband without going over the speed limit. Maybe down the road it would be worth experimenting with changing the rear axle to something with a shorter final drive. For instance if it was changed to 4.7:1 then at 75 MPH in 2nd gear the motor would be at 8500 RPM.

[Bratitude]

Turns out 1st gear is good for 65 MPH at 10,000 RPM! In 2nd it can cruise easily at 75 MPH at 6,500 RPM. Almost feels like we need shorter rear-end gearing to get the full potential out of it.

Using the tachometer I was able to confirm the final drive ratio is 3.7:1, which is correct for this make/model and that the ratios of the 5-speed match up to the 240SX transmission (1st- 3.321, 2nd- 1.902, 3rd- 1.308, 4th- 1.000, 5th- 0.759).

1st 12.3 and 2nd 5.6 final drive. Dayum! Yeah that’s a pretty huge gap. How big are the tires?

[EVSwap]

1st 12.3 and 2nd 5.6 final drive. Dayum! Yeah that’s a pretty huge gap. How big are the tires?

Tires are 205/65/16 or about 26.5" diameter

[Bratitude]

Tires are 205/65/16 or about 26.5" diameter

Okay so 6.5% increase so ideally you’d want maybe around
8.72:1 final drive to match a stock leaf.

So yeah that 4.7 rear end would be about perfect !
It would be around 8.9:1 little extra for truck stuff

[EVSwap]

Dave took his truck to SoC24 and Electrify Expo this week (I also took my land cruiser but who cares). I met a lot of you and also fans of my channel. It's so awesome to have all this interest and to meet everyone. Thanks for coming out it really means a lot! If I didn't get a chance to talk to you or I had to run and do something else in the middle of the conversation I'm sorry but please reach out if you have more questions.

Dave had so much fun and loved talking to everyone and answering their questions.

The truck is working out awesome for him. He says he loves driving it and he loves the instant throttle response when people on the highway try to cut him off

What blew me away is his reported battery usage. He left his house Friday with 100% and arrived at SoC24 with ~85%. Then the vehicles were parked for about 48 hours. On Sunday we drove first to my house in Morrison to exchange equipment, he was at 69%. Then Dave left for his home. He arrived back at his house with 59%. Speeds were 45-50 MPH surface streets and 65-70 MPH on the highway. It was a hot day, fully 100F maybe more on the roads.

I do not honestly know if the % on the dashboard correlates linearly with capacity or not, but if I just use 59% and 37 KWH usable capacity (of 40 total) then that is 15 KWH consumed and 84.4 miles traveled.

5.6 miles/KWH. That's really good. I used to be able to get that in my LEAF but it was rare.

[steve]

I got the modules loaded into the battery boxes and all the accessories like contactors, fuses, current sensor, etc. Boxes are sealed up and in the truck!

Very nice Build! How did you mount the cells inside the box? Just squeezed in? I see no bolts, just checked your videos.
Did you use extra bolts on the compression plates?

[EVSwap]

Very nice Build! How did you mount the cells inside the box? Just squeezed in? I see no bolts, just checked your videos.
Did you use extra bolts on the compression plates?

Just seeing this now. The stacks fit really snugly end-to-end, so the bolts basically bottom out and hold it in that direction. On the short sides I cut up some heavy plastic material, similar to a thick cutting board. I cut and fit the pieces so that they wedge in and brace the battery from shifting side-to-side. Lastly, I used expanding foam to fill gaps on each side and the top.

[EVSwap]

My friend Matt and I did a range test with the Frontier EV. We were able to do 114 miles and we calculated we probably could have done 129 total if we ran it all the way down to zero. Speeds were mostly 55-65 but we did get up to 75 MPH in a few places. Overall a good usable range test. Likely, Dave doesn't have as heavy of a foot as I do so I can confidently tell him it'll do 120 miles.