Electric conversion: Project ForkenSwiift

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

why bother electrifying the car when it's already a hybrid?

a hybrid mix of suzuki, geo and pontiac!

This cracks me up. Kinda makes me wish I didn't paint my car last year and just left it with parts from 4 different cars on it.

One thing is for certain, no one would steal it like that :P

[MetroMPG]

Dropped the torch off at

[MetroMPG]

Update o' the day:

Spent another hour today

[MetroMPG]

Drivetrain is out of the re

[GasSavers_DaX]

Offsetting might be the best bet.

For the single drive wheel option, you can weld the differential to create a "spool." I think a lot of rally cars have a spool so that they can finish the race even with a broken axle. The disadvantage of this option should be aparent - if you lose traction on your drive wheel, you loose all traction.

[95metro]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

One thing I was wondering about was if it would affect handling - ie. would the steering "pull" all the time? Just when accelerating? Would it behave oddly in tight turns? (In one direction, the motor would run faster than the opposite turn.)

The differential simply makes certain that the driving wheels are able to turn at different speeds during cornering. It's pretty interesting, howstuffworks.com has some good Flash animations.

I know there used to be some 1-wheel-drive RC cars, but they were generally RWD. Hard to say how a FWD would react. It probably would pull to the power side and you probably have to give it more gas around the corners where the drive wheel is on the outside, but I don't know for certain.

[MetroMPG]

Offsetting: one concern that comes to mind is that it puts some lateral load (what's the proper term for that, engineering folks?) on both shafts. I wonder if that might have a negative effect on shaft bearings & seals.

[95metro]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

The "spool" idea becomes clear when you see a diff in motion. There's a good flash animation on this page:

Hahaha, you beat me to it...

[GasSavers_DaX]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Offsetting: one concern that comes to mind is that it puts some lateral load (what's the proper term for that, engineering folks?) on both shafts. I wonder if that might have a negative effect on shaft bearings & seals.

Are you talking about a thrust load (parallel to the turning shafts) or a radial load (perpendicular to the turning shafts)? Both can be compensated for - the former with some form of thrust bearing, the latter with a good quality ball bearing.

[MetroMPG]

I think doing the offset would add