Vanilla Ice

Anybody ever think about doing one of these in a third gen?
I've been toying with the idea of building an all electric drivetrain in an iron duke car but I'm gaining a slight interest in this idea instead of a turbo. As I'm only shooting for 400whp tops I think it's a good candidate.

Street Lethal

iTrader: (16)

I was considering this too with my '87 V6 Firebird. My target is also around 400 horsepower to the wheels, give or take 25 horsepower, but the problem that I foreseen was the amount of boost these electric-chargers were only able to provide with an already anemic engine, let alone an engine making significant power. I have never seen an electric-charger put out higher than five pounds of boost pressure with an engine that, although has two cylinders less than mine, essentially makes the same horsepower naturally aspirated, around 150 horsepower. So I would need to make between 275-300 horsepower naturally aspirated to reach my goal with only 5-psi, which only adds about 3/8's worth of horsepower, but this is where the problem comes into play. If the electric-charger gives up the ghost at only 5-psi on an engine making 150 naturally aspirated, it might not be able to generate the same amount of boost pressure, or any at all to be honest, with an engine already starting with 275-300 horsepower. Only option for me to reach my 400-rwhp goal is to either buy a supercharger head unit and make my own bracket for the 2.8, or build a set of turbo headers for it and slap on a properly sized turbo. The EC, from what I seen, won't be able to cut it...

Vanilla Ice

Not an electric supercharger, a full on electric drive motor attached to the crank pulley with a cog belt. Basically a hybrid bolt on kit but for power.

Far more expensive than turbo but built for the future.

Street Lethal

iTrader: (16)

Ahh, I misunderstood. That would be an interesting concept, though I would worry about the sheer torque output of the electric motor occasionally snapping the cog belt under heavy load, but then again I am envisioning all out power. Do you have a rendition of what you're looking to do because it sounds very interesting. Can't argue with the future concept though, because the Tesla cars are very impressive at the track...

Vanilla Ice

There's not much out there yet, but if you google echarger, that's a kit under development I've heard of. I don't know much about that one, but there's a few out there that are overpriced.
I'd probably build my own version so I can tailor/choose the power output and features/packaging and see if I can eliminate the alternator in the process. Been doing a lot of research lately on the EV setup and don't want to buy another car or give up the V8 quite yet (or ever...).

Street Lethal

iTrader: (16)

This seems to be the direction that the next generation is going. I did a little research after my last post, and I have to admit it seems like a very interesting concept. A lot of guys are implementing forklift electric motors while yielding insane results at the track, I even see some low nine second racers on youtube. I remember discussing Tesla engineering at the dealer when I was in the market for a brand new car awhile back, what concerned me was the duration of the charge, but more research brought me to a solid and positive conclusion. Would still be a little concerned about the duration of that charge for the average do-it-yourself'er, but it would be fun as hell either way. Makes fossil fuels seem ancient, not to mention big cube combustion engines completely irrelevant.

... and it's still very early in the DIY stages. Gotta admit, you got my attention. Hmm.

Vanilla Ice

I'd love to see any links you came up with. I haven't looked into what people have done, only been inside my own head with it and researching components.

Street Lethal

iTrader: (16)

The cleanest install to EV has to go to Steve Cornett and his Subaru, I recently came across his build and am very impressed with his work, mainly because he paid careful attention to detail, covered all of his bases, and it looks factory. Job well done for him.


Been looking at various transmission routes as opposed to just running the electric motor straight to the axle, as this would of course reduce the need for high RPM to obtain a good speed and save on power. A lot of guys opt for the powerglide from what I see, but the kickdown deters me, so I would rather opt for an e-trans with standalone control. However there is a guy on youtube that built himself a really sweet setup running a manual transmission for his old EV swapped pickup truck. What I like about his setup is the electric motor mount to the body, as it is similar to the old 460 BBF into the Fox body Mustang back in the day, and he goes into depth about his fabrication...


The EV seems like a very straight forward swap, but before I would even consider this I need to research voltage a little more because we're now talking enough zap to knock someone unconscious, and maybe even knock them out for good. Need to explore battery packs a little more, but unlike the guys on the web I would need to figure out a self powering system, maybe run an alternator that powers a separate battery pack while the other is being used, then switch back and forth between the two. Talk about free energy, but I'm getting way ahead of myself because if it were that easy it would have been done already...

Vanilla Ice

Ah, These are straight electric swaps. I thought you found echargers in the wild. I want to do full ev one day but I'm talking about a bolt on addon not a bolt in replacement.
Not ready to give up my SBC.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

That is putting alot of stress on the crank snout and front main bearing lol. I dont like it at all, putting that much power thru a cog belt

But its interesting.

sailtexas186548

iTrader: (2)

you could use a transfer case like a 4WD vehicle and mount the electric motor to the output shaft. From there it's all engagement control to sort out, can be pretty cheap/simple but not refined or the sky is the limit if you have the $$ to back it.

toughest part would be packaging, maybe have to mount it back off the transmission and have two drive shafts

oil pan 4

iTrader: (1)

When super chargers are added to a vehicle they can take 20 to over 100 horsepower to turn. If the crank can put that much power out to drive a super charger it could take that much power from an electric motor.
GM already tried this kind of setup on the e-assist to improve fuel economy, it didn't work very well if at all to increase fuel economy.