We Flew The Coupe!
After all of the work over the last 18 months we finally got to experience the ultimate payoff: Driving the coupe under Tesla power! I was scrolling through the blog this morning remembering everything we have gone through:
We selected a coupe in just poor enough condition that purists wouldn’t mind us “ruining” a highly valuable original car.
We stripped her down and glass-blasted her only to find that she was in far worse condition than we bargained for. So bad that we almost gave up on her and bought another shell to build on. Remember the rebar and duct tape?
We (We = Tyler) restored every inch of metal including all new rockers, fenders, sunroof, floors, and so on and so on. The bright side being that this is the newest, tightest BMW E9 we know. This blog only detailed a fraction of the metalwork, as it is really supposed to be the story of the Tesla conversion. Our Instagram logged every inch of the car we worked on - find us on Instagram here
We ripped out the trunk floor and fabricated mounts for a Tesla motor between the rear wheels. Custom axles were sourced to connect the motor to the BMW hubs.
We installed a fully adjustable coilover suspension into the coupe. (I forgot to write about that here- maybe I’ll go back and do so).
We converted the beloved but bulky and heavy steering system to a low, compact and lightweight rack & pinion steering system, all to make room for batteries.
We relocated the brake booster and master cylinder into the transmission tunnel, also to make room for batteries.
We fabricated a fully enclosed aluminum battery box fitting 12 Tesla modules into the engine compartment. We installed 2 more in the rear (with room for one more if we choose). This gives us 73kWh of power, or an estimated 200+ miles of driving range.
We installed a host of high voltage wiring and low voltage control equipment.
We installed big powerful brakes into the coupe, along with larger, wider wheels and tires for maximum road grip.
We installed automatic electric parking brakes which lock the rear wheels when parking the car.
Countless other restorations, modifications, upgrades and safety implementations. Many of which have simply not been mentioned here as this blog is about telling the bigger story and providing inspiration, rather than being an instruction manual to build a classic electric car.
With all of that work behind us we finally rolled the car out of the shop and gave her a first few slow and careful lap around the building. Here’s the video:
Much More Work to be Done
To say that we were completely overjoyed would be an understatement. It took a solid week of celebration before we returned to earth and began to start looking at our upcoming list. There is a still a lot of work to be done:
Install our Battery Management System (BMS). This will monitor and protect the batteries as we charge them and deplete them while driving.
Connect our charging system so that we can plug the car in.
Install our power steering pump and plumb it to our brake booster and steering rack.
Install our ignition key and gear shifter. We won’t be using our vintage rocket ship control panel forever.
Install battery and motor cooling pump(s) and plumbing.
Install heat and air conditioning.
Wire up all lighting and other typical car functions.
Paint the car.
Finish the car with all interior and exterior trim. (as if this were just one small task:)
While I would love to think that we are a few months away, I’ve seen how the calendar moves faster than our shop time. There is family, work, and many other more important things than this car. Still, this was a huge milestone. The light can now be seen very clearly at the end of the tunnel!
Cheers,
Paul