I need your advice on a unique opportunity, please

Should I pursue this electric cutover?


  • Total voters
    10

Jim McKenzie

1972 850 Spider
Today the teacher of the Engineering shop at the local technical high school came by my house. I chatted with him briefly, and it appears the school would like a small sports car to work on...to make it a fully electric car. They'd like to use my 1972 Fiat 850 Spider. They would remove the engine etc of course and I suspect make other significant changes, but we spoke for only a few minutes as it snowed yesterday and I was in my pajamas.

My car runs, but still needs a lot of work to really make it road worthy...and to make things worse my mechanic I've been using just retired. I live in a fairly rural area so fining a replacement may be quite hard. They'd be no charge to me, and I'd get the car back of course. The school also has an auto body shop, AND an auto repair shop so I'd have three or perhaps even six teachers guiding this. But again, I have no idea as to their relative skills.

What's your feedback here...would making an 850 Spider electric ruin it? Or perhaps save it?
 
'technical high school' - could go either way, IMO. Might turn out OK, just as likely the car would be junk at the end of it....
Is the school noted for excellence in this department?
 
Jim,

Ask if the car would be able to be put back to its normal drive train if the project doesn't work out. Also ask for a range estimate. If they plan to make it have a range that would fit your normal usage for a day, I would say "go for it". Of course, I don't have an 850 and you have had that car for a long time.
 
Tell them that you would be glad to help with their project. With this condition. First they take your car and restore it as original. Then, once they have proven they can do a simple project, you will donate another 850 for them to do the electric one.
 
Option A (as it is now): Car runs but will never be restored, will most likely never be brought up to roadworthy condition, will likely eventually be sold as a parts car or scrapped.

Option B: Car donated to tech school for dubious electrification project. Even if it's brought to roadworthy condition, with electrification it will no longer be the light, pleasant-motoring Italian sports car it once was.

Paging Captain James T. Kirk, paging Captain James T. Kirk: Please pick up the white telephone for a Kobayashi Maru scenario.
 
Are they also interested in processing the car through their body shop and mechanical shop programs? That would mean a pretty complete 'resto' to get you in a drivable car (which you now don't have). Even if the electric conversion doesn't work out for your needs, and the car was highly modified in the process, it can always be returned to a gas powered vehicle - one way or another.
 
Given what I have seen of most electric conversion projects, I think you would be essentially sending your 850 to the scrapyard.
If you believe you will never be able to muster the needed enthusiasm to restore the car, or make it enjoyable, why not sell it on
to someone who will? Does the car have some serious flaw or damage? It sure is pretty. Hard to imagine Jim McKenzie without
that hot yellow 850.
 
Don't plan on seeing the car for a long time.
There will be dozens of different kids dinking with the car and a lot of mistakes.
You said you had a mechanic working on your car and it will likely never be restored so in that respect there is nothing to lose.
Ask what motor, controller and batteries will be used.
If you can, get then to install an AC motor.
If the conversion is done right, changing back to ICE will be a hard task.
If there is no out of pocket cost for you and you are not mechanically inclined, go for it.
 
Do you get to keep the electrified 850 once it is complete?
Will they write a manual to the car afterwards?
 
Do you get to keep the electrified 850 once it is complete?
Will they write a manual to the car afterwards?
I have read about these kinds of projects on gas and electric vehicles and to my understanding the person donating the car and gets the car back on completion but it takes a long time to get it completed.
A manual or at least a list of everything done and a diagram would be a good idea.
A friend of mine has a friend that headed up an automotive tech in a college in Mo.
My friend took his fairly new PU truck in to have some engine work done on it.
One of the kids there parked the truck on a slight incline and left the truck sit in neutral and parking brake off.
The truck rolled down and of a slight embankment bending the crap out of the bed.
They replaced the bed and tailgate and as an added bonus a bedliner he didn't have to start with so he made out.
Personally I only trust my own work to a degree but as I said, if you have no mechanical skill, knowledge or desire to work on the car then get a written contract that you agree on signed and notarized and let them have at it.
 
We attempted to do a very similar project for a college senior design. The sponsor had a pretty specific list of parameters with needs and wants for each, acceleration, range, weight, and price. The car was a Berkeley B105 (4 wheel, ugly hood). It turns out it just wasnt doable to achieve all his needs let alone the wants. Let the school do their homework before powering up the hack saws. Have them provide a full BOM with a cost, weight, and range estimates. Do your own research and see if what they come up with makes any sense.

I might be able to find the info to our project but uncertain. It's been 6 years now.

We put the Ninja 250 engine back in the car, fab'ed up some better engine mounts, and gave it back to the owner.
 
Jim,

It seems like an interesting opportunity, but I think electric needs to be exactly what you want if you are going to let them do it, and you should be allowed to have input as to how the project unfolds.

For example, part of the charm of an 850 is that it is a very light car that feels tossable. Electric cars all have one thing in common: they are heavy. They can't help but be heavy because of all of the battery weight. Without substantial and expensive changes to suspension (read: remove the whole kit and kaboodle and replace it with something more advanced,) an 850 would be like a pig on roller skates. The school's idea might be more like making it run and drive without being sorted.
 
It would be better if they bread boarded the system before doing anything to your car to work out the solution and verify the parts etc outside the car. A series of simple wooden bucks could be made by the school to represent your car (engine bay, passenger compartment and frunk) prior to removing anything from your car and would be an excellent way to verify and debug the system and then transfer it to your car with any secondary mods to the system and the car at that time.

Trying to get it perfect the first time in the car is frankly impossible.

This is the sort of stuff I do in product development, you need to do your initial prototypes to figure out what will work, experiment through to a good working solution and then assemble and verify the end result.

Doing it this way would allow them to get the drafting class to measure and then make a CAD model of the car, translate that into a buck using other tech at the school such as a C&C router or other cutting machines in wood, another group in the finish carpentry group to build the buck and the teams working on the various subsystems of an electric car also using the CAD master model of the car to package it all together. The next step is building the components to go into the buck and verifying it.

This could be a very good project for a school if the instructors where really good about divvying up the project to different groups.

Modifying your car should be the least part of it or at the very least the last part after getting things together and working.

I would bet there is a completely rusted out 850 which could be the basis for the mechanical part of the buck someone could donate.

Just some thoughts.
 
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