Budget UK conversion

Hi All,

I've posted some of this on the MGF register forum and the more detailed build thread is on the Open Inverter Forums. But I was just told about this section and it looks like more conversion projects wouldn't hurt.

  

This project started unofficially 2 years ago when I bought this car by accident on Ebay. It didn't make what I was expecting so my cheeky low bid ended up being enough. The next year was half spent in a shed being ignored, and half spent changing the HG only for the clutch to start slipping about 3 weeks after. Around this time last year there were some pretty big advances made over the in Open Inverter forums on hacking into hybrid components. Specifically for this project it was discovered that prius inverters are actually pretty capable power units.
So I made the decision since I was going to have to drop the rear subframe to change the clutch I might as well change the engine as well. In hindsight, would have been way easier to just change the clutch!

Main components and specs
Mitsubishi Outlander Phev rear motor. 70kW peak, about 30kW continuous rating. 190nm of torque
Prius Gen 2 inverter, with inbuilt dc-dc converter and the potential to use the hybrid charging side to charge the battery pack.
Kokam 53Ah pouch cells in an 80s1p config. 15.6kWh capacity.
Using the original gearbox.

Total cost of the project so far is just over £5,000. However I spent £3k of that on 180 pouch cells of which I will only use 80. I've sold off 20 at a reasonable profit already. So I expect the sale of spare cells to knock off a decent chunk of that £5,000. Right now I have every major component bar of the EV conversion purchased(bar Open Inverter BMS). None electric wise I do intend to get the hydragas spheres refurbed and buy some new dampers. Apart from that I expect no more major costs.

I currently have the rear subframe mostly complete. This is an older photo taken before I finished the brackets and coolant system install. The current task is striping and repainting the front subframe and then working on the battery box.

 

 

Hi and welcome to the forum

Looking at that motor something like it might be the solution to my hybrid plan. Do you have any other photos of it in the subframe.

James

For those who are interested this is a link to LRBen thread on the open inverter forum
https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=181

Thanks for sharing. I find this very interesting and ponder doing this to my F in the years to come.

Here are a couple more at different stages of installation.


Thinking about the hybrid idea for an MG F, you could use the entire rear motor and differential from an Outlander Phev. One of the reasons I didn't use the differential was that in the Outlander the motor hangs rearward of the differential, so in the MG I would have had to install in backwards.

If you were to put this in the front subframe then the weight would be towards the middle of the car rather than hanging off the end. Assuming there is space for it. Space would still be a bit issue in order to fit in batteries and the inverter. Another alternative could be a tesla small drive, those have the inverters built in which saves some space. Would just need to find space for batteries then.

wrote:

Thanks for sharing. I find this very interesting and ponder doing this to my F in the years to come.
 

I was initially attempting to make this almost a bolt in conversion. I do have some spare adaptor plates and the CAD designs to do more. It's just a shame that I had to cut the spare tire compartment for the batteries. In the future I think that it will be possible to fit enough batteries in the fuel tank area for decent range. In which case it will become a fully bolt in reversible conversion.

Been working on the battery box in recent weeks. Front subframe was removed and stripped for cleaning. Made up this tray to hold the box from 40mm x 3mm angle steel. The plan is now to build up the box with 1.6mm sheet steel and use clear perspex as a cover.

BMS plans have been delayed by the worldwide chip shortages. But that doesn't stop me from finishing the rear subframe and starting on all the wiring. I can also complete the front subframe restoration.

 

That works, and has the bonus of strengthening up the subframe.

A quick update on this project. It's not dead!
Most of last year was spent trying to source a BMS system, which proved to be tricky with the chip shortage. I then spent the first few months of the year testing the BMS system and the charging setup of the Prius Inverter. Using the Prius Inverter to charge from the mains is pretty highly experimental, there are 2 or 3 other people in the world that I know of also trying it. Turns out it's not really that ideal, the setup is far more complicated than using a traditional in car charger and has the potential to short lots of things. Which is what I did, killing my Arduino based VCU in the process. So I decided to switch charging to an Outlander Charger and DC-DC converter. This runs from Canbus and I got it running in a weekend pretty flawlessly.
The BMS system is also being changed out to use Tesla Model s slave boards and an open source BMS system called SIMP BMS that enables communication and control of OEM BMS slave boards.

So allot of months delay but that is the nature of experimenting with new ideas, sometimes they don't go anywhere.

I also decided to change the battery pack location after hearing about the DVLA getting really picky on modifications. If I had to go down the IVA route I would need a certification on my battery box costing around £6,000. So I decided to weld the spare tyre compartment back in and leave the front alone. Instead the battery box will bolt into the passenger seat mounts. Not ideal as it's now a single seater, but that's better than potentially writing the whole project off after it's all finished.

Currently the battery box is installed, all the car wiring is complete. Most of the car is reassembled. Just waiting on a replacement board for the one of Tesla BMS board and then I can complete the High Voltage wiring.
What's left is minor things, brake bleed, suspension refill, bumpers to go back on and a little bit of inverter tuning.
I'm expecting spinning wheels in the next week or so, with MOT shortly after.

Spinning wheels!

Hopefully get some driving around the yard footage next weekend.

It's on the road! Actually it was on the road months ago, just in time for the end of summer. I wasn't happy with the performance of the original inverter setup. So I dropped the subframe once more and replaced it with a Outlander inverter to match the motor. I also brought the charger back so I could use the original fuel filler port as a charge port.


Went through the MOT no problems, done probably 500 miles in it so far and it's been pretty good. I've added a little bit of regen that is activated by the brake lights. I still need to change a couple wires over so the speedo actually works. I've just been using the mobile phone and also the rev counter, which in 2nd gear every 1000rpm is about 10mph.
In terms of gears I usually just leave it in 2nd gear, which works just fine at all legal speeds.

Congratulations!:clap: