Building a Smart ForTwo in a different way…

Not sure how I'm just now seeing this. Way cool, and I can't wait to see the finished product. 

Turbocad6 said:

In reply to bbbbRASS :

I do want to get rid of all the electric crap, only thing I was considering salvaging was a few contactors in the battery I dont have the patience or desire to start breaking this pack down to salvage cells, make me a ridiculous offer I want it gone anyway tbh...

initially I tried to individually charge the cells back up, I got a lot of them to eventually come up and hold charge after days of micro amp trickling I even got the center bank up to over 90 volts and somewhat even over 3v each cell but then some were resistant and rose slower some would drop from 3v back to below1v in a few days... I didn't even bother playing with the third bank, at that point I gave up on the OE electric it's just sitting in the back yard trying not to get wet atm 😊

Yep, sounds like the BMS decided there was a fault and it did the "safest" thing and drained all the cells, which in turn damaged some and led to higher internal resistance. Or it could have been the other way around. I'm in SC, and just decided not to come to the City this winter so I would have to figure out how to get stuff down here since shipping would be quite the issue. Are you by chance going to the challenge, or know anyone local who is?

In reply to bbbbRASS :

No chance of getting this ready for the coming challenge, maybe next year but depends on budget I guess 😊

don't know anyone really, didn't realize you were so far. I'm pretty sure I could get a pallet from work and crate stuff up, not so sure how worth it it is though...

Maybe try one of these.  It's a Winters Performance "non-quick change" differential.  Flip it upside down, but it would be driving on the coast side.  At your power level that should be fine.  This is a 10" ring gear, they make a smaller one "SRP437-838NQ" with an 8 3/8" ring gear.  Porsche drive flanges are available.

In reply to Turbocad6 :

Okay, tweaking your account again. 

I am quite sure that Audi and VW rear diffs (obviously from the Quattro/All wheel drive cars) are reverse rotation.

This winter I tech inspected a Volvo 245 with a Passat TDI engine and gearbox. The owner explained that he drove it first using the Volvo rear axle - with 6 reverse gears and one forward gear. The VW Passat rear axle is a surprisingly good fit in a Volvo 245 (and gave him 6 forward gears). Not to mention the fun of having front driveshaft stub axles doing nothing :-) when the gearbox is used as an rwd.

In reply to therealpinto :

that is very interesting, I haven't found any of that out in my searching so far, thanks I will dig into this a bit and see what I can see 😊

In reply to XenaFordPrincess :

That thing looks like it costs more than my whole build so far 😂 10" ring gear is way overkill here too

 once I'm flipping anyway there are a ton of more reasonable options that are still more than strong enough even on there coast sides

Looks like a 2000-2005 Passat 4-Motion or 1998-2005 Audi A6 Quattro are reverse rotation. I think after that they are standard rotation.  DEFINITELY cheaper than my suggestion.

have you watched the episode of Faster with Newbern and Cotten where they put a VTR1000 engine into a 1972 Honda Z600. not exactly the same thing... but it might give you some ideas

In reply to XenaFordPrincess :

Wow thank you I've been searching for Vw or Audi stuff since therealpinto mentioned it but haven't found anything yet, this pic shows the ring gear opposite side which is what I need, going to do some more digging now, thanks 😊

Go Xena!

Love how this forum has people brainstorming and finding solutions. Especially impressive when they are new readers.

Now I feel I am not pulling my weight 

Hey merry Xmas and happy new year 😊

so I did a lot of digging into Audi and VW diffs and there are a few that will work for me

i winded up ordering a differential from eBay from a B7 A4, on its way...

in the mean time I picked up a spare smart car rear subframe and a spare Miata rear subframe, and with some measuring of both the smart car and the Miata I was able to join the 2 together exactly how they will need to fit together to have the Smartcar sit at the correct ride height of a stock Miata...

I could weld them together just like this and use it like this and it would work, but it is pretty heavy and an excessive amount of steel... and I still need to create mounts for the Audi diff too when that gets here so what I am going to do instead is just tack this all up to fit and then use that to make a jig to copy the geometry from, and then build a whole new complete rear SS subframe from scratch to match the front, I have some SS material leftovers I can use for that. SS wouldn't be my first choice but the front subframe is already stainless and I already have all the SS material I'd need for the rear, so stainless it is 😊

here is the 2 subframes mated as they will sit if assembled in the car... 

What alloy?

304

Honestly I would have liked to do 4130 front and rear subframes but the front one I already got and it's already SS so a little extra weight isn't going to be the end of the world especially being so low at the floor of the car,

I'm trying to keep it budget and already have a ton of 2" schedule 40 SS and some plate

In reply to Turbocad6 :

Finest reason ever for material choice. I saw a Smart E in traffic today, downtown Easton PA. Your subframes will be far more reliable than the original Smart ones, they seem to rust rapidly here in salt world.

Yeah, so I've been getting as much info as I can on Audi diffs and I bought a couple to play with. I also picked up Audi axles and driveshaft, learning the hard way how Audi uses multiple sized flanges and getting stuff to match up is tricky, buying some parts that don't work with others but overall getting closer to something that will work

meanwhile I have been grafting a rear smart subframe into a Miata rear subframe and lining them all up square and level so I can make a jig to build my new subframe. Here are a few shots of mock-up and test fitting 😊

I also was able to test fit alignment of the new subframe to the engine and start mocking up motor mounts to clear the steering

I use some plastic flat board to fabricate a template of a motor mount then make a test fitting jig to duplicate it at work, then I'll take that flat plastic board motor mount apart to trace each piece to some flat steel plate and tack weld it all together to fit the jig template and then take it back home to test fit 😊I just need to match the overall shape size and angle for this first step. A lot of back and forth templates and test fitting when fabricating parts away from the actual car 😁

Beginning part of Left front motor mount tacked and ready for test fit, CAD at its finest 😊

Oh I do not hate this.  

Stupid question though-  does SCCA have a track width/height ratio restriction for any of their competitive bodies?  I know lemons does, but I'm not familiar with others.  I only mention it because you said you might be looking to race this thing, which I wholeheartedly endorse. 

In reply to golfduke :

Yeah, basically from what I understand it needs to be at least as wide as it is tall or have some sort of engineering documentation/proof to say otherwise that it's not prone to rolling over

im building this thing to be lower than stock, combined with the wider track width of the Miata suspension should have me right about there dimensionally, and I'm building everything to have the lowest COG I can, worse case I'll play with offsets a bit before I rebuild the fenders, not looking to add a chopped top ATM 😊

I would love to keep it stock looking but the wider track width is going to mean some kind of body mods so in the end it'll probably look like a cross between a stock Smartcar and a group B Rally car 😂

I would love to keep it stock looking but the wider track width is going to mean some kind of body mods so in the end it'll probably look like a cross between a stock Smartcar and a group B Rally car

You say this like it's a bad thing.

In reply to The0retical :

Yeah for my use with this thing as a commuter I'd rather it just looks like all the other regular cars and blends in rather than stand out, but that might be a bit hard to do here 😊

Turbocad6 said:

In reply to golfduke :

Yeah, basically from what I understand it needs to be at least as wide as it is tall or have some sort of engineering documentation/proof to say otherwise that it's not prone to rolling over

 

im building this thing to be lower than stock, combined with the wider track width of the Miata suspension should have me right about there dimensionally, and I'm building everything to have the lowest COG I can, worse case I'll play with offsets a bit before I rebuild the fenders, not looking to add a chopped top ATM 😊

Just to clarify, the SCCA rule is track width equal to or greater than the height.