Zach’s Electric Diablo

After a little searching on car-part.com I finally found my transaxle:

It’s an Audi 5000 1986 5n. It seems to be in decent shape. However, I am going to send it to gtainc.biz for a rebuild.

According to lambolounge.com the ratios for this transaxle are:

1st - 3.6
2nd - 2.13
3rd - 1.36
4th - .97
5th - .73

Final 4.11

If I use 335/35/R17’s for my rear tires, I get 769 revolutions per mile (using this calculator). This means if my motor is turning 5000 rpm, the wheels will turn at:

mph=RPM /gear / final * 60 / revs per mile

-or-

1st gear- 26mph
2nd gear - 44mph
3rd gear - 69mph
4th gear - 97mph
5th gear - 130mph

It looks like I can do most of my driving in 2nd and 3rd gears.

The “big motor” was delivered yesterday afternoon:

It weighs about 270lbs. Good thing we have a forklift.

During my lunch break, I went down and started fitting some of the fiberglass parts to the chassis. I found that my chassis had an unusually large center console to accommodate an extra large gas tank. Seeing that I am going electric (no need for a gas tank), I figured I’d do a little trimming.

Just a little more trimming and the original fiberglass center console should fit over this area.

My window regulators arrived today.

I need to figure out the best way to mount the window glass to the regulator. I’ve seen some people use a piece of u-channel, others use a piece of flat-bar with some kind of plastic clips that fit into the holes in the bottom of the window.

Wednesday nights are my nights to play. Liz (my wife) gives me Wednesday nights to do guy-geeky-stuff. Sometimes it’s a Dorkbot meeting, other times it’s model night, but for the next few months (or years) it is going to be car night. Last night was the first time I actually made real progress on the car. I’ve heard that assembling the doors are the hardest part of the the build, so I decided to do them first. I am going to built one complete door, the passenger side. Then when I am happy with it, I will duplicate it on the drivers side. This way if there is any futzing it will be with the door I use less often. (I know I should really do all the door work after the body is mounted to the chassis, but figure I can at least get everything laid out now and do the final mounting later)

I worked on getting the aluminum window tracks shaped to fit the door and window. Different kits have different track systems. My D&R kit uses aluminum ‘U’ channel bent to fit the shape of the glass. After the channel is bent and mounted you slide pieces of delrin into the channel. It seems like a decent system.

I also started laying out the latch and electric door poppers (I found these for $5.50 brand new from AllElectronics.com)

When I got home, there was a big package waiting for me.

Now I can start building my wiring harness.

Ok, here is my first post. I am usually terrible at documenting my projects, but this blog will hopefully change that. Let’s get down to business, I’m building an electric Lamborghini Diablo 6.0.

It is based on a fiberglass body kit from D&R replicas:

I have a Replica chassis with air lift suspension installed on the front end (though it needs some modifications to get the front wheel clearance correct) . I’ve also built a dual hoist lift gantry to aid in taking the body on and off the chassis:

As this is going to be an electric vehicle, many things are going to differ from your average “kit-car” build. Typically, people convert existing ICE vehicles to electric by taking out the engine, exhaust, gas tank, and cooling system. Then they add an electric motor, controller and batteries. Fortunately, I get to start with a clean slate and only add the pieces I need.

To start with I am using a WarP 11″ series wound DC motor. This motor typically is used in larger vehicles or dragsters, so I hope to have decent acceleration (the beauty of an electric motor is all the torque is at the low end) .

The motor will be coupled to a transaxle* using a custom adapter plate. I’m still not sure which transaxle I will use. I am looking at using the standard Audi 5000 transaxle, but am having a hard time finding one. I am also worried that it might not be able to handle the low end torque. I’m also looking into the transaxles used in sand rails. They look promising.

I have a Zilla 1k motor controller on order. There is a five month lead time on it so I can only hope it is worth the wait. I met Otmar (the Zilla’s designer) when he visited one of the companies I work with. After hearing him talk about the Zilla’s design, I decided it was the right controller for me.

I am still up in the air as far as batteries go. I am leaning toward LiPo’s, but they are costly. There are many factors that go into battery selection, I am sure I will go into details later.

Other accessories in the works are a custom charge system, Mac-mini based music/nav system, and who knows what else….

*DC motors typically don’t have the speed range to do direct drive. AC motors do, but they are much more expensive. Another cool thing is that you don’t need to use a clutch as the motor is happy to free-wheel at any speed.