[DRIVING] Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Tell us about the project you do with the open inverter
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by royhen99 »

Ev8 wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 7:04 pm Also does anyone recognise this connector 5x2 looks to be 3mm pitch
Possibly this https://www.auto-click.co.uk/7282-8856-30
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Thanks that does look like the one, I can’t find any info on pitch though so it’s still a bit of a guess
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by royhen99 »

3mm, I checked before posting. Here's link to drawing. https://connector.yazaki-group.com/comm ... R_DRAW.pdf
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Alibro »

Really nicely cut hole. Looks amazing.
Sorry no idea about the connector.
I need a bigger hammer!
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

royhen99 wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:32 pm 3mm, I checked before posting. Here's link to drawing. https://connector.yazaki-group.com/comm ... R_DRAW.pdf
Ahh perfect thanks that must be it
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Pete9008 »

Ev8 wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 7:04 pm Another week another small step towards chademo working, port is in the car, make up a little home for it to sit in behind the hole I cut in the bumper in December! Made from my favourite plastic material ; spare lids from whamm upcycled storage boxes it’s really easy to plastic weld together with an old soldering iron!
Somehow missed this, looking good!

Very interested in the plastic welding too. Can you give any more details on what type of plastic it is and the welding technique? Also did you plastic weld it to the bumper too?
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

So the plastic I’ve been using looks to be Polypropylene it’ nice and thick so gives you something to work with, I am welding it using just an old 50w soldering iron with a flat tip about 6-7mm wide that I’ve shaped to a round end, my technique is basically dipping the tip in and out moving along trying to keep a molten pool, it’s likely not as strong as using a proper plastic welding gun but it’s free! The recess isn’t attached to the bumper just sandwiched between the charge port and the metal mounting plate
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Pete9008 »

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try. Do you need to use a bit of spare plastic as filler rod or can you get away without?
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by PatrcioEV-ATX »

Ev8 wrote: Mon Apr 24, 2023 5:54 am Seems like a couple of us have been let down by the non ev parts of our cars this week, I’ve been noticing over the last week or so my car seemed more sluggish to the point I was convinced I had a motor problem, until I noticed one of my lovely green wheels turning black, turns out I had a seized front brake callipers, not good for efficiency.
Looked into replacement callipers £300 a side ouch! So I purchased a piston and seal kit.
Funny you say that. I'm using the GS450h transmission and the piece I fixed to the bell housing cover to lock MG1 in place snapped off a couple of weeks ago. I turned MG1 off in the code and can still drive on MG2 until I drop the transmission and repair it, but what a bummer!
1998 Ford ZX2 - DC EV conversion(sold) http://evalbum.com/2093
2012 Nissan Leaf (sold)
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2023 Volvo C40

Current: 1964 Rambler Classic 660 w/ GS450h set up. 36kwh Tesla batteries from B250e.
https://www.instagram.com/rambler_660e/
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

No time to work on the car lately, about to list our flat for sale so all evenings and weekends are taken up tidying, cleaning, repainting rooms ect.. I have however picked up another cheap Lexus transaxle, this time a 2015 nx300h transaxle for £120 specs and casings appear broadly similar to the the rx400h but it looks like Lexus have added a second line from the oil pump (probably from the pressure relief valve instead of just dumping back inside the case) that is routed to and oil to water heat exchanger and then back into the top of the case roughly in the same place I return oil to in the rx400h case once it’s been through an electric pump and oil cooler, unless this addition to the nx300 transaxle works the opposite way round ie it’s an input at the top of the box from the area of the case designed to collect the oil scooped around by the main ring gear, there is perhaps enough pressure delivered by this method to pump oil into the bearings for lubrication without mg1 turning the main oil pump….. ie extended ev only mode, either way I plan to investigate further, the price of this transaxle I thought would be perfect for a future fwd economy ev project!
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Come to think about it it probably does take oil from the top of the case and just through the cooler and back into the case, just a self powered cooling loop, nothing more
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Had some spare time this afternoon to run the battery down lower for a range test, As I use it every day I am forever just topping up when convenient, so all this last year I’ve been running around on just a guesstimate of usable pack capacity, turns out my guess was off but in a good way, I came home Friday with a 3% Soc and cell voltages bang on 3.6v so I knew there was more to be had, this afternoon I did an additional 12.5miles, all in town so no more than 30mph and roundabouts or traffic lights every 1/2 -3/4mile.
Last Sunday I used the car the visit my parents 14 miles away which includes 50 and 70mph stretches, today I came in with cell voltages just dipping under 3.5v (still some capacity left but boy does performance drop off at these lower voltages! Thanks to high inductance motors loving the volts) total miles for the week 67.5, kWh used 17.78, average miles/kWh over 67.5miles 3.79 m/kWh. I’m fairly happy with that as it includes stop start commuting and some high speed driving.
Yes it’s not the most efficient, I’m hoping the upcoming battery voltage increase and flat floor will help a little
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Pete9008 »

Look forward to seeing what you do with the nx300h transaxle. What kind of power rating do they have? Be interesting to know whether they are high inductance too?

Great news on the extra range :-)
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

I can’t find any specs for mg1 but mg2 is supposed to be 105kw @ 650v so similar to the rx400h transaxle that came before I expect,
I decided to just grab it while it was going cheap and hopefully a project car will come along to put it in! I do keep looking at mk3 mr2’s on eBay though, you can get one pre 2001 and transaxle should go nicely in the back.. maybe with a couple of vw hybrid packs charged in parallel and driven in series…
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Pete9008 »

Good find at that price. Been keeping my eyes open for cheap 400h boxes but so far nothing has turned up.
Ev8 wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 8:58 pm I do keep looking at mk3 mr2’s on eBay though, you can get one pre 2001 and transaxle should go nicely in the back.. maybe with a couple of vw hybrid packs charged in parallel and driven in series…
I was thinking a fwd economy project sounded unlikely ;)
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Lol well yeah, Maybe sell to wife as fwd economy project build stripped out mid motored track car… the future will tell
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Interesting I’ve just seen a Toyota Mirai motor come up for sale

From the outside this looks like an rx450h transaxle with mg1 removed.some changes to the bellhousing end but pretty much the same on mg2 end! Toyota rates the marai at 134kw with a gear reduction of 11.691:1 and a tyre size of 235/55/19 which seems to indicate they are spinning an mg2 sized motor to approx 9.5k rpm to hit 70mph. I’m guessing that the marai motor must be wound differently!
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

14500rpm to hit its max speed of 108mph

If it is the same high inductance mg2 from the rx450h then Toyota are doing some magic to spin it that fast!

Looks like they must still employ a boost converter as battery is 310v nominal
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Pete9008 »

I think the Gen1 used a boost converter yo run the DC bus at up to 650V which must help a lot. The gen2 may be even higher voltage?

The boost converter has to be a bit of a beast as it must have to handle the entire motor power!
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by lsh3rd »

I did a bit of searching and see this link: https://tinyurl.com/2fzxdynn (Sorry to those in the future when this goes away)

It looks like there is a second motor that bolts to the "bellhousing". I see a second set of 3 phase cables as well, so they must have ditched MG1 in favor of something more powerful. The inverter also seems to have 3 separate 3 phase outputs: https://tinyurl.com/bdctkesm

It's quite interesting. I saw a Mirai chassis without a body on it on display in Tokyo in 2015. I only have 3 pretty lousy shots of it on my iPhone still. I didn't really know much of what I was looking at back then. I sat in the car on display as well.
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Thanks that is interesting, so I looks like they are using mg1 aswell then… my pictures clearly show no input shaft in the bell housing and the thing bolted to the bell housing in your pictures looks very much like pictures I’ve seen of the large water cooled boost converter I’ve seen when searching, we knew it must be a beast of a unit to handle 130kw!
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Added a picture to the full Maria assembly from your link
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Sorry to those wanting to read about updates to my car only to find I’ve spammed my own thread
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Ev8 »

Wohooo! Chademo

First charge! About 6months later than I’d hoped but finally got there, Hardware is Jamie’s esp32 chademo, it’s a tidy piece of kit, took me a second or 2 to figure what can the isa shunt needed to be on! Lots of wiring to tidy up and need to work out why Soc constantly shows 0%
In The ah settings the capacity seems to just count to minus figures, if I can’t figure it out I’ll just run another twisted pair to the bms as Jamie’s code seems to read the standard simpbms can message for soc

Any input from the creator would be welcomed!

Sorry for the terrible pictures and the state of the car it’s covered in sticky tree sap!
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Re: Project RX8 , Prius gen2, Lexus transaxle to rwd

Post by Bigpie »

Yes, the SoC is a bug that I've not looked at :D I switched to using simpbms reported SoC.

Glad to see it in action on another car. What unit model and network was that?
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