996 Electric Conversion Project

I am a new 996 owner and i am currently working on a project to convert my car to electric power. I'm starting this thread to share my progress with this group as there seems to be some interest in this. (One of my videos of the project was picked up on another thread and there were some positive responses when i asked if I should kick off a thread on this.) I am still starting on this journey, so i will put up an abridged history of the project so far over the next day or two. I have chronicled a lot of my progress here for anyone who can't wait or prefers moving images. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCca...qkmt33wJBAMe5g I am currently working on the project as two streams, one getting the car to a point where I am happy with it (replace brakes, check and tidy electrics, remove the beige interior, touch up the paint etc.) The other side is to get the electric motor working outside of the donor car and in a position where it can work in the Porsche.

Subscribed. I had this dream of building a hybrid 996. All of the AWD 996 have a shaft going to a front viscous differential. My plan was to remove the front differential and half shafts, and replace with an electric motor to provide "boost" between 70-100% WOT. A battery pack in the front that would provide only a few minutes of power for the electric motor. Brake regen, maybe, but mostly regen through the engine. The idea being under heavy throttle, the car would have high levels of torque, but the electric motor would mainly be around for the ride when cruising. If I got real fancy, an EV mode to move the car around the garage without starting the ICE. That paragraph is about how far I have gotten into this plan. I am looking forward to your progress.

Subscribed also, would love to see where this goes... Once Porsche gets their EV fully hashed out I think I'll sell my house and buy one! I'm sure the price will be way north of 150K.

If you want to sell those beige seats I am in the market for a set, either the entire seats or just the covers. Good luck with your project!

definitely subscribed👍

Might be a little late but saw you were having problems with caliper bolts. Here's my how-to on fixing that: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...ting-hole.html

Excited to see this unfold. Someone else did an electric conversion build thread on here a few years back and it turned out really nice. Since then, the technology has advanced quite a bit so I'm interested to see the differences between the two cars.

Can it be done for less than proper rebuild of the m96? Here's some really cool conversions... https://dgit.com/10-awesome-ev-class...versions-8592/ Thanks for sharing this with us!

I always thought the 996 would be a good chassis for a Tesla motor swap, the form factor of their rear motors should fit in the flat six space very well. Packaging batteries would be more of a headache but can be done with cutting/welding and added in different shapes. If you want to make life easier there is a company that sells Tesla kits with motors, controllers and touchscreen all pretty much setup to go, not cheap, here is the link: http://store.evtv.me/proddetail.php?prod=TeslaDriveUnit

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I've been considering a similar idea but leave the front differential and couple and electric motor to it. The other idea is to take the transmission apart, turn the viscous coupling into something solid, and then connect an electric motor to the output for the front wheels and back drive the transmission. Driving the front wheels with a motor allows EV only mode and will probably provide better AWD than the factory but driving the transmission would be lighter. mcgousha - looking forward to seeing you build progress!

Subscribed! Someone else on here has done this in a 996 a few years ago: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-my-996-a.html

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Nice, I really like the idea of using multiple electric motors for AWD. Hmmm.....it could be a cool future project..... No...I have enough on my plate getting my head around the ins and outs of motor control for a single motor, maybe after I've done that

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Thanks, that's actually really helpful, got annoyed with the calipers so decided to do a few other jobs before going back to them, so the stuck bolts are still something I need to tackle.

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I like this idea, but it would require software that ties into the traction control/ABS system to modulate the torque in less than perfect traction. Not saying it can't be done.

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I'm am tracking the costs in a spreadsheet, but I am holding off totaling the amounts until the project is complete. (Really don't want to know right now ) Will report back at the end of the build.

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I looked at this a bit while putting together my rebuild comparison spreadsheet, and I think the short answer is no . Assuming you want high performance (it's a Porsche, not a Prius) and a range of at least a couple hundred miles, I think you would have to spend at least 25k on the drivetrain, and maybe a lot more. Looking around the Ev West website, the high output motors are around $10-12k. Tesla battery packs are around $300/kWh, so you're looking at around $15k for something equivalent to the base Model 3 battery pack. That's all before adding regenerative braking, wiring, chassis mods and other stuff that I'm sure I'm ignorant of. I may be looking at this all wrong - would love for someone with more knowledge to jump in.

You're right, performance and range will have a huge impact on costs. I could convert the car to electric using an old forklift motor and some lead acid batteries for a couple of grand... But that would be an embarrasment to the badge on the bonnet. I'm using a leaf motor for my build to try to keep the costs somewhat reasonable and while the stock power of the leaft is about 1/3rd of the power from this era 911, the general consensus is thay Nissan are playing it ridiculously safe with this motor and that it can handle far more. The biggest single outlay on this build is going to be the battery and i will probably build up the range iteratively as the funds are available. Then at some point it is going to reach a point where it is a trade off between increasing the range or keeping the weight reasonable.

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Heh, yeah I probably got a bit carried away with the Tesla parts list. Quick Google search shows complete Leaf motors for USD 2,500, and people talking about modifying them to 300hp, which would be in the same neighborhood as stock. That definitely changes the equation. Do you know what kind of batteries you're planning to use yet?

Batteries is still an open question. The Leaf ones come in "relatively" cheap per KWh, but I have heard there are limits to the amount of power they can deliver at a time. Which in turn would limit the performance potential of the motor. I have heard good things about Volt battery packs, but they didn't sell all that many this side of the Atlantic, so I have had to put some feelers out to see what I can get my hands on. The Tesla batteries deliver the biggest punch, but they are also very expensive. It may end up being start off with with what I can get my hands on and then replace it if it doesn't give me what I want. I'm currently trying to run the motor and inverter off lead acid batteries so anything will be an improvement on that:-) Here's the current set up: You Tube

What about TWO Leaf motors?

Check out EVWest and Batteryhookup.com - the folks at one or the other may be able to tell you where to source used Tesla battery modules closer to you...

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Ha, I did consider that as a potential future upgrade, assuming I managed to successfully get one working. There would be some complexity in the software to ensure they are running in sync, but I figure I could turn this into a narrow body C4 by adding a second motor in the front. I'm sure there would be some obstacles to clear around steering components and the like as well.

Okay, so I realise I haven't really given much of a project update in a while, so here we go. I'm still running the project as two stand alone streams, but we are getting closer to bringing them together. With the car, most of the effort has been cosmetic on the car, this has mainly been to make space in the garage so I can put the car in there when it comes time to drop the engine. I have done a full interior swap on the car and I will probably post another thread around that, but there are some video's here if you are interested or need to see how it's done. How to remove a 996 interior part 1 How to remove a 996 interior part 2 How to remove a 996 dashboard With the Motor the effort has mainly been around trying to get it running on the bench. I have the bench set up complete and have built a software controlled precharge circuit I can use, but I am struggling a bit with the CAN communication. While I continue to work through that, I will probably order a drop in board from the Open Source Inverter guys (which was going to be phase 2 anyway) so the project isn't held up. Software controlled precharge Motor Bench Testing Set up Motor Bench Testing - CAN issues

While I am still trying to get the motor running standalone, I figured there was nothing stopping me from progressing a few other things in parallel. The most recent job has been to look at how the Leaf motor is going to fit into the Porsche, which is step one in bringing the two streams together. Measuring the motor and car From here we can start figuring out how to mount the motor into the space in the car where the transmission currently lives.

Wow, has it really been two months since I last posted an update on this project? Time flies when you are having fun. I hit a pretty big milestone a few weeks ago when I dropped the engine from the Porsche and finally got a proper look at the space I have to work with. The job itself was a much bigger undertaking than I had originally thought, while it is possible to drop the engine in a home garage with the normal tools a enthusiast would have, it does add to the time it takes to do the job. It would definitely have been easier if I had access to a lift rather than just jack stands. I reckon in total it probably took me 15 hours over 3 days to do the job.

If anyone is interested, you can see the step by step of the job here: You Tube And the aftermath here: You Tube

Google Truckla, its a Model 3 converted to a pickup, there is a guy who specializes in the tesla power and controls.. His shop might be a good source..

Just wanted to give an update on this as it's been a few months since I last posted. I've ended up spending most of my limited free time working on the project so I have been making progress. I'm taking an agile approach to this, trying to get things in place and working in some way, shape or form so I can get this car moving, with the view that I can redo some of the work at a later date to make things more permanent, stronger, or just better. I spent a good few weeks trying to figure out the best layout and orientation for the motor, and ended up having to take a cutoff wheel to part of the motor casing to allow it to fit. I decided to run the Leaf motor and gearbox together, rather than trying to run it through the existing tiptronic gearbox and ended up pivoting the leaf motor 180 degrees horizontally to make it fit in the space. The rear seat buckets encroached too much into the space where the gearbox was to make it possible any other way. This means I need to run the motor in reverse so I will need to add some sort of transmission fluid scavenge system to get the fluid to the right parts of the leaf gearbox, but that's a challenge for another week. For the current set up, I created some brackets that I could mount the standard leaf motor mounting brackets to so we can hold the motor in place and test it, but in the longer term, I plan to combine the motor mounting into the batter box. You Tube With the motor held in place, I was able to focus on starting to integrate the motor into the car, that meant looking at electrical connections and drive shafts. I built a custom loom to manage the various signals to the inverter and installed it in the car and I chopped and welded the four halfshafts I had (2 Nissan, 2 Porsche) to make 2 shafts with Porsche CV joints on the outside and Nissan Leaf CV joints on the inside. You Tube You Tube Since then the effort has been to get the other components in place, mainly the inverter and precharge circuit and most recently to put in a bunch of small lead acid batteries to use as a test battery back. You Tube With that all in place and now fully wired up, I am running out of ways to put off actually trying to run the motor in the car. I am doing a complete check of the wiring now, but once that is done, I think my only option is to switch it all on, send power to the inverter, press the accelerator pedal and hope for the best. I'll let you know how I get on, this is getting exciting.