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YOUR RESEARCHHomebrew Hybrid thoughts...
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rear seat would have
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Most likely the rear seat would have to disappear to fit the necessary components.
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The motor just replaces the Alternator and is about 3 times the size.
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Suggestion
By 2050 replacing the internal combustion motor with a battery will become a necessity.
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Just had this thought on the train ride in today so haven't really thought about it much outside of that.
I know guys are doing and have done full electric conversions on 996/boxster models.
There are obviously some disadvantages with this currently which got me thinking of a hybrid retrofit/conversion.
I was thinking the perfect candidate could be the C4 and C4S models. Just thinking out loud here...
- remove driveshaft linking to front diff
- replace front diff with electric motor
- fab adapter/gears from electric motor to attach front axles
- add additional batteries up front(wouldn't need too be much)
- upgrade stock alternator for higher amps and connect also to front batteries
- Get something like some Arduino boards to program in inputs and various outputs to control when to start and stop the electric motor but also to intercept/cut throttle output to factory ecu
- My thinking is to intercept Drive By Wire throttle and speed signal to Arduino and for any low throttle applications under say 0-20mph, have the electric motor start and once speed gets above 20mph or so, have the throttle output go to the factory ecu like normal and shut off electric motor.
- My thinking is the motor will always idle regardless of speed and keep charging the battery(s).
- Obviously, one can develop a quite sophisticated algorithm for maximum efficiency including start/stop and regenerative braking.
Cons I can think of(for some at least):
- increased weight
- loss of 4wd
As we know the initial starts(outside of aggressive driving) consumes the most fuel. I'm wondering how much more efficiency can be achieved by having an electric motor get you going first.
hmmm....
Yeah .. Look at the gm "mild hybrids" .. Almost no gain, lots of extra cost, sold almost zero.. Even the Green Party voters were not stupid enough to buy. Prius works because you have a small / highly detuned gas engine ...
Sorry, but if you can't answer this question, I think this is way too ambitious of a project for you. Building a hybrid is very difficult, building one that achieves maximum efficiency is even more difficult. The modeling involved to accurately answer your question is difficult and time consuming. It also requires you have pretty much a complete design - all components chosen. Packaging will be difficult as you will need to fit a motor, controller, and batteries. Most likely the rear seat would have to disappear to fit the necessary components.
Going full electric would for sure be way easier.
Who ever said I was building this?
Also I'm sure you can fit the packaging in the frunk. Remember, this isn't full electric and you won't need as many batteries. Controllers and other components take minimal space.
It seemed implied to me.
Just take a look at this
In this set up, it is essentially a KERS and only adds power in addition to the ICE. Imagine a motor like that in front + the geartrain to drive the front wheels + the controller + the batteries (only 1/2 visible in this pic) + the necessary cooling for the batteries, motor and controller. Seems like it would fill up pretty quickly to me.
Ten other drawbacks:
1) Loss of frunk storage.
2) Start with a good car, end up with a bad car.
3) Suspension is all wrong for the new weight distribution.
4) Increased chance of fire.
5) Increased chance of electrocution.
6) Lowered reliability.
7) You will be ribbed if it doesn't come out better than a Prius, and it won't.
8) The chassis may crack from the new weight.
9) The chassis may crack from the torque of the electric motor.
10) The forward drive shaft will break from the torque of the electric motor.
Tesla is doing such an amazing job with their model S that IMHO it puts buckets of cold water on any thoughts of a DIY full electric or hybrid.
Miles ahead of any commercially available full electric or hybrid . Light years ahead of any homebuilt.
Test drive a P85+ if you get a chance... It's Panamera territory.
I fully agree and my intentions/thoughts were never meant to try to be in the same category as those production vehicles that do a great job.
I was just trying to stir up discussions and provoke thoughts on a grassroots effort with modest expectations given some very limited resources.
Sometimes it's good to think about these things instead of the usual "what intake should I buy? , should I change my pumpkins?, etc...".
Some will look at this idea in terms of pure financial or goal oriented while others will look at this nothing more than a challenge to see if/how it can be done.
I was in the same spot in the late 80s trying to extract close to 300hp from a turbocharged 1.6L 4 banger and was also met with some level of skepticism. Today, you have manufacturers doing the same thing from a OEM effort. And as such with greater resources, they are able to provide greater refinement and reliability.
I would never expect a grassroots effort to rival that of an OEM but I do believe forums like this makes a great place to discuss these types of ideas. And who knows if OEMs are tuning into these forums to see if they can pickup anything, whether it would be a specific targeted demographic interest or some technical data they can use to further refine a basic idea.
Just to make it clear, these are just thoughts I've had and at this point had no intentions of embarking on a project like this. However time permitting next year, I do plan on a full CRX EV conversion which has already been mostly planned out and will go forward if the government will still be offering the EV conversion credit. As with the hybrid thought, I'll be mainly doing the EV conversion to basically say I could do it, first and foremost. Now if I already had a c4 and with the advancement in technology in a few years...
No need to be too harsh on the OP. His suggestion is harmless but interesting. Just think of the future 25 years from now. There will be little oil left, and oil price could become prohibitive to driving our cars. At the same time, battery technology will improve and prices will come down.
By 2050 replacing the internal combustion motor with a battery will become a necessity. Just imagine a 50lb battery that can power your entire car? Electric motors are small, so you can stick four of them on 996 with ease, one on each wheel. Now 996 ANY 996 can go 0-60 in 3 seconds flat, drive 500 miles on a single charge, and can be charged in 15 minutes.
Right now though, doing a 996 hybrid is just cost prohibitive. Also, I doubt a lot of us have the engineering prowess to complete such a project. Fusion of internal combustion engine and electric motor is very complex task. Until someone comes up with a affordable stand alone tuning/programming fusion software between gasoline engine and electric motor those home brewed hybrids will be very rare and very expensive to make.
I saw some youtube videos on people building the home-made electric only cars. To me, it seemed like a huge amount of work for a mediocre product.
It would be a lot easier to just use the hybrid parts off something like a Saturn Vue. The motor just replaces the Alternator and is about 3 times the size. It just boosts the engine power and doesn't require messing with any of the drivetrain. Controlling probably wouldn't be real easy if you want it to shut off at stoplights but still a lot easier than what was mentioned.
The tuning of the power management system would be the key to making it both "work" and be efficient. C4s don't have much of a trunk in the first place.
It does sound like it would be fun to build, no matter if it beats a Prius or not.
I would rather start a DIY on how to get Flux Capacitors working so we can go back in time and help engineers design a better m96 motor.
I can see this thread isn't really making any traction as I was originally hoping for ideas and constructive engineering responses(ie: there is no consumer motor available that would fit in the space of the front diff with adaptor, the Arduino boards would be too slow to accurately control all throttle,speed,load situations, etc...
It's often easy to say no or shoot things down as anyone could do that. It's a lot harder to come up with innovative, colaborative, and/or genius ideas in helping advance the original idea.
The reality is that most people on here would raise an eye more to any performance increases over anything else. I should've realized that and just started something over at ecomodder in the first place.
