EV Trans Am

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of visualization of how the motor and transmission will couple. I plan to keep the clutch and transmission so I’ll need an adapter to mate the flywheel to the motor. Electro Automotive’s site was very helpful to me in understanding how the pieces fit together. The taperlock bushing was a new concept to me. I know how the pieces will fit together, but don’t have a solid idea of the depth of the adapters – that will determine the distance from the flywheel face to the rear of the motor.

I found a drawing that is the layout of the rear of my engine, front of the bellhousing. This is extremely helpful because I’d previously matched up the bolt holes to holes I made in a used pizza box.

This is a drawing of the type of adapter I’ll need. The dimensions are just working numbers to help me understand how the gap closes. I’ll leave it to the machine shop to determine the actual bushing dimensions.

[I removed the image because it wasn’t accurate and don’t want to confuse anybody]

Tonight I made a battery box model for the fuel tank location. It will be a tight fit, if at all. I opted to try the 8 battery layout from here, having the batteries on their end. I’m planning to use AGM so they can be in any location. I’ll need to find a battery locally that I can measure and ensure the manufacturer’s specs and my allowances will really work when including all the terminals and wiring.

One of the goals is to remove as much as possible from the Trans Am to reduce weight. Since we had parts off and I’ll want to clear the garage soon, I got my brother to help weigh everything. Here is a list of all the parts and the weights.

The last step before ordering parts is making sure I can cram enough batteries in to make this work. I like the numbers on Odyssey so I chose one that was a little low on amp-hours but was small. I’d like to keep the batteries out of the interior if at all possible so that limits me to the fuel tank location and within the engine bay.

I decided the best way would be to make a model of a battery out of cardboard for a rough idea of how many would fit. After getting a feel for the areas I thought to measure the maximum space available and determine the largest battery I can fit there while still reaching my voltage goal. As long as the weight penalty isn’t too great the larger batteries should provide for either better range or increased pack life since I would be drawing them down less.

My brother came over and we measured the fuel tank and engine bay, as well as the t-top well in case we have to go interior. The fuel tank location is a trapezoid when viewed from the side and has obstructions on the underside including the rear gear housing, axle and panhard bars. I had removed some suspension pieces and almost included that area in the available space. I also need to allow clearance for the rear axle to move up over bumps and general suspension loading since the car will only get heavier from here.

Attached are some layouts I made of a possible battery box. It looks like I can fit 6 in a 2×3 pattern of larger batteries sitting right-side up. I also think I can fit eight smaller batteries sitting on end. The length is very close to my available height to the rear axle so I need to verify the clearance and movement.