LOL - indeed it wasn't! At the start of the project, I do remember an argument with our (then) MD who wasn't an engineer, in which he strenuously maintained that the low power output didn't matter because it had more torque. Nne of us engineers could convince him, but we did enjoy the "I-told-you-so" feeling!
Yeah, things have moved on a lot since we did those. Using an existing battery pack is definitely the way to go.LifePo4 is a very safe chemistry and has a much higher energy density than Pb, but doesn't come close to NMC, which I'd use in a FL1 conversion. NMC will be better than 200Wh per KG, and over 500Wh per litre, so it's reasonably energy dense, although obviously well short of petrol or diesel for energy density.
I don't really know what shape / size a Leaf battery pack is, to be honest. Did you intend to split the pack up to package it round the FL better, or try to keep the whole pack as one unit?
True enough, but you're up against it with the lossy 4WD system. If you stuck a TD4 lump in a Leaf and drove it at the kinds of speeds that you envisage driving the FL, what do you reckon you'd get? 50+ to the gallon? My guess is that it would be at least 60% more fuel-efficient than in the FL1. Maybe 80%, even. I think the Leaf will be MUCH easier to push along than a FL1. If your inverter is of a similar efficiency to ours, you won't get much heat out of the cooling system. At a guess, I'd say you'd need at least 5kW to keep a FL1 nice and toasty in Winter. Probably more like 7. Sure, the heated seats will help if you're willing to make a few sacrifices. We ended up (for shame!) fitting a Webasto heater and having a small tank of diesel, so that you'd occasionally have to buy a gallon of diesel for you "zero emissions" vehicle. Let me tell you, 5kW doesn't go very far in a Transit in Winter! Of course, you will already have a small combustion heater that you'd get free with the FL1 (if it's a diesel one).... You'll still need a radiator for the Summer in any case. Yes, electric power steering off something with the same (or greater) max. front axle weight and which uses the same sort of fluid as the FL1 rack, would be a good thing too. And, indeed, the AC pump. We had the constraint of trying to sell these at a profit, so we were stuck with re-using as much of the donor vehicle as possible, because we'd already paid for it. At least you won't have that constraint. Ours were done in the least efficient way possible, with a DC-DC converter and electric motors driving the pumps off the base vehicle via V belts. It was really naff! Electric vacuum pump will use tens of watts though. I think mine has something like a 30A fuse!It is more inefficient to use an EX ICE engined vehicle, but there's plenty that can be done to minimise those inefficiencies.
For instance, using seat heating instead of heating the whole cabin whenever possible.
The PS will be run via electric, from an existing vehicle which is fitted with an Electric over Hydraulic system. These are efficient when there's no steering input, as the fluid simply circulates unrestricted.
A vacuum pump is needed to power the brake servo, but the motor for that will use just a few Watts.
Motor/inverter cooling will be via a small radiator, with a bypass to flow warm water to the heater matrix to add warmth to the cabin. This will be supplemented with the FL1 PTC heater, which should be enough, although at the expense of some range.
The AC compressor will likely be taken from a vehicle which uses and electric AC compressor, but its also reasonably easy to fit a suitable electric motor to the existing AC compressor, but that's not very energy efficient.
Maybe not, but it'll be better than converting an old E36 BMW, which has been done many times.
