1984 Voltswagen Rabbit Prius Gen 3 ZOMBIE

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

some day, the Holy Trinity of Carnage aka the HTC shall be complete

Ahh yes, the holy trinity of angel grinders.

[arber333]

Heating the springs to the point where they bend will destroy the tempering of the spring significantly weakening it. Essentially heating something cherry red and letting it cool down slowly will anneal the steel. It's a very bad idea.

Well annealing is the point here if you want to lower the ride quick. Last couple of inches of the spring will NOT be a spring then and it will drop the suspension down a bit. That is a cheap and dirty trick i know but untill you try it you wont know what your car will look and feel like when it is lowered. Mostly it is what men want to do, sort of like joining two pices of metal with heat makes you better than you were before .

[arber333]

Ahh yes, the holy trinity of angel grinders.

I use it as well. I keep one grinder with cutting disk, one with thicker disc and the third one with that grinding pads disk which allows me to quickly grind my welds to see if there are any cracks...

[Gregski]

Guess who just spent $260 bucks on a regular 12 volt car battery? ... but did I mention it's a Super Start EXTREME, lol

Super Start Extreme Battery Group Size 99 T4 - 99EXTJ

Have battery prices gotten stupid expensive in your neck of the woods as well ?

[Gregski]

it do fit like a glove though... the two OEM sizes the computer recommended were surprisingly huge

[jrbe]

Yes, batteries are really expensive on the east coast too. I'm looking at making LiFePo4 batteries instead. Pesky freezing temps that you cant charge is slowing that.

[Gregski]

Yes, batteries are really expensive on the east coast too. I'm looking at making LiFePo4 batteries instead. Pesky freezing temps that you cant charge is slowing that.

did you see how Johannes handled this problem, link provided drops you at that point in time

[EVSwap]

I would have used a motorcycle LiFePo instead. I used one in a LEAF for over a year in CO winters (down to -20F).

[jrbe]

did you see how Johannes handled this problem, link provided drops you at that point in time

Not sure if you meant building a battery or the freezing temps & charging.
I was looking at using LEV60F cells with a BMS and a heater. I watched the video but I didn't see anything about how to deal with below freezing temps and charging. Was considering ultra caps then switching on the battery once above freezing but it's got a lot going on and clunky.

[arber333]

Not sure if you meant building a battery or the freezing temps & charging.
I was looking at using LEV60F cells with a BMS and a heater. I watched the video but I didn't see anything about how to deal with below freezing temps and charging. Was considering ultra caps then switching on the battery once above freezing but it's got a lot going on and clunky.

I am using small 30Ah AGM battery in Mazda now and it holds its own. It was like 80€ sometime back though.
Sometimes i see it falls down to 9V but i managed to get it up and it still holds charge. I think your normal Pb starter battery would just die under the abuse.
Important consideration is to lower the standby drain of the car as much as possible. All the standby relays draw quite a charge and if you can remove than you are mostly good with smaller battery.

[Gregski]

Things were going great, so I decided to add some uncalled for drama! Today I have owned the Rabbit for 65 days, and I thought could I convert it to electric in 100 days or less?

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

could I convert it to electric in 100 days or less?

I hate you. I'm on week #2 of trying to replace u-joints. Not even a part, it's a part of a part.

Also, I mean, you can convert a vehicle in a weekend if you felt like it.

90% of what you've done has been stuff that could've been paid for instead of done by you, or it's car-restoration stuff that could've been fixed by... not starting with a rusted out 1984 Rabbit.

[rstevens81]

Ahh yes, the holy trinity of angel grinders.



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All I will say is.

Do it!!!

You wouldn't regret it it...

Unless you chop your leg off ...I had a close call ...and have been super careful since


....
Forgot to say diesel engines of that era are like 30:1 compression so the battery is super sized for cold climates (Canada) I would look at the smallest sized engine petrol to get what you need.

[Gregski]

90% of what you've done has been stuff that could've been paid for instead of done by you, or it's car-restoration stuff that could've been fixed by... not starting with a rusted out 1984 Rabbit.

You sure about that?

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[MattsAwesomeStuff]

You sure about that?

This is why SuperFastMatt says never to write down the actual list of stuff to do. Because as soon as you start writing it down you realize how much work it actually is.

I'm cheating when I say stuff you could've bought. I kinda include all the design work you maybe technically could have planned out ahead of time and just paid someone to mostly-fabricate. I suppose Rabbit-Prius motor mounts aren't a purchaseable item because you need hands on the car to know what they should be. Paying sendcutsend and doing some quick welding on them is a 1-hour job, if you had the design. Bolting them up isn't the time sink. CVs could be something you sent off to be done and just had to install. Systems integration? Something you could've designed ahead of time and always works perfectly the first attempt.

Springs? Buy them.

Brakes? Blame the shitty car for the actual stopping hardware. Vac pump and done for the conversion part of it.

Cleaning? Blame the car.

There's not really that much mandatory other than De-Ice, motor in, battery box goes in, connect the wires. The dis/ass-embly time is doable in a long day. It's a matter of how many of your problems you can solve without hands on the car or troubleshooting.

If you would have gone with insects rather than rodents, a VW bug has pretty much all of those parts are sitting on shelves ready for you. That's what I mean by it can be done in a weekend if you choose the more money than brains option and a cooperating donor vehicle that didn't have one foot in the grave.

[Gregski]

84 VW MK1 Rabbit Battery Pack Install

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

Ok the spring discussion is one I can actually contribute some knowledge to!

Spring rate aka stiffness aka the variable k is typically measured in weight per unit of distance. For freedom units, pounds per inch. Meaning how many pounds create one inch of deflection. That stiffness is a function of spring material, thickness of the coil, and structure/winding.

It's important to note: many cars, especially GM cars, use multirate springs, meaning the first few inches of deflection are a different rate than the rest of the spring. This is a huge factor in why cutting springs can change the rate, you're literally cutting off the softer section.

Also, heating a spring (whether intending to soften it or just to cut it) is going to impact the rate.

Also important to note: Springs need some amount of initial loading in order to actually function. An old mentor had a great story about a fish tank pump; placing it on a neoprene isolation pad did nothing to quiet it down. Placing it on a brick, and that brick on the neoprene pad properly loaded the neoprene and quieted the pump.

The "seesaw" or otherwise uncontrolled motion when modifying suspension typically comes from disrupting the equalization of the springs. Assuming for the sake of this that a car is a one mass, two spring system (think a brick supported from below by a spring at each end = looking at the car from the side) then there are two modes of vibration: up and down on both springs, and rotating (one spring up, the other down) any sort of motion of the brick is going to be a combination of those two modes. Spring equalization isolates those modes, so that a motion in one mode does not create motion in the other mode. While the mathematical proof is quite long, the solution is quite simple:

(k1)*(b1)=(k2)*(b2)

where:
k1= front spring rate
k2= rear spring rate
b1= horizontal distance between the front spring and the center of gravity
b2=horizontal distance between the rear spring and the center of gravity

Now actually implementing this gets complicated, because any time you have a spring that isn't completely vertical or acting directly on the axle there are other adjustments and math that has to occur. However, that formula is the basis of how you can get rid of "seesaw" or "porpoise-ing."


Now separate from the spring issue: Greg I do not understand how you work this fast. I did a ton of work last summer in way too little time, but you're moving at damn near lightspeed.

[Gregski]

some pics of the battery pack trial fits

I soon decided to bolt the cover back on to keep the dust out of it

[Gregski]

here is it from underneath the car

[Gregski]

Hole Transferability Station (HTS)

that's red Sharpie ink not blood (for once) on my finger

[Gregski]

the rear bracket

[Gregski]

Platasaurus Rex

[Gregski]

Template Time

[Gregski]

going after the front braces, bracket thingies, the white stuff removal was zero fun


DRIVER SIDE

PASSENGER SIDE (I think Irma was having a bad day on the production line that day and took it out on my frame rail)

before all the grinding

[Gregski]

and she's in, should make for a great little 7.6 kWh starter pack