So I finally got my 01 Prius running as an EV. Well almost. It has a 55 HP AC motor in place of the old gas engine. 25 kw of Lithium to get me down the road a ways. It drives on the Prius system but I cant get my electric motor to drive / charge the system. I left all the original sensors installed but of coarse they have no engine to monitor. I faked the temp sensor with a resistor so the little blue "cold" light is out on the dash. I machined a "crank" ring and installed on the end of the electric motor so the crank sensor would have something to read. It will fire the spark plugs as the electric spins up so it does think there is a gas motor installed. I have not built a cam ring to run the cam angle sensor. Any Ideas? How important is the cam sensor? First problem was a dead hybrid pack but I built a jumper cable and charged it from my second Prius and all blocks are over 15 volts. I do have enginuity scanner software which has really helped but unfortunately today my laptop died just as I was doing my first test drive. BFN Randy
Randy: I was thinking along the same lines when I bought my 06. At first I was going to do an EV conversion. A searched for the ideal vehicle to convert, and decided it was a Prius. I bought a totaled Prius & rebuilt it. The ICE was fine, so I decided to fix the car, and add more batteries to the EV pack instead. Anyway, I spent some time thinking how I would control the AC motor replacing the ICE, and I thought that the A bunch of sensors would need to be fooled to make the car think that the ICE was running, when it wasn't. I never went down the whole path on that, but saw some issues. What was your approach?
Since the Prius already has the PS, PB and DC-DC looked after, it is a simple conversion if I can get the thing to accept the electric motor. Needs anti rejection meds. I have disconnected all the sensors on my running 03 and it does look like the cam sensor and crank are about the only ones that shut the system down. I would have though that no oil pressure would shut it down but it happily runs away with the sensor disconnected. Now does the cam sensor have to be timed to the crank sensor or is a pulse good enough? BFN Randy
Wow ... Impressive! Of course, you should maybe talk to the guys at AutoBeYours... I know that Steve Woodward did an all electric Prius a while ago. Also, why not pick the brains of the Ewert Brothers. They may have some ideas! Nikki.
yep, pics or it didn't happen.... also, wonder why if you can do this, and Nissan can make the Leaf, why can't Toyota make an EV??
EV Prius with no Pictures? That's like saying, "I got steak ... but you can't see it ... or smell it" "Click" first ... post later" that' my motto. .
Since this is just a test to see if I can get it to work we just use a second throttle inside the car for the EV drive. Once I know it works then we will pick up the signal from the throttle body. I just need to see the energy flow meter show some flow from the new electric drive and then I will start making it look pretty (for those important pic's) and finish the control system. BFN Randy
It lives!. Turns out the crank sensor is looking for the 2 tooth gap to indicate TDC. I had just machined up a 36 toothed ring. Once I removed the two teeth it all worked quite well. Dash display shows power coming from the "gas engine" to drive the car as well as charge the batteries. I suppose its on to the next step and make it all work as one unit. Still think I will machine a cam sensor ring as well. BFN Randy Canadian Electric Vehicles Ltd.
Randy: Congrats! So what is the plan to stop the Prius from charging its battery from your AC motor? Howard
