Hot Rodding Hybrids

Some shower thoughts based around Toyota hybrids and race cars: 

1. Toyota hybrid AWD rear motors

Allegedly good for 56 horsies, they seem pretty compact, seems like it could be a unique powertrain for an a-mod car or perhaps a front drive unit for a bike engine car? 
 

2. Hybrid eCVT tuned for performance 

eCVTs, much like regular CVTs, are tuned for fuel efficiency. However, regular CVTs have high potential in race applications, so why wouldn't eCVTs as well? Obviously, you'd have to tune your MGU output to match the output of your ICE, so one don't overpower the other. Why haven't we seen eCVTs tuned for power efficiency?

Hmm ... I'm intrigued.

I actually did my senior design project 15 years ago looking at eCVTs. The dept head had promised generous funding, and I had a pretty neat design drawn up, but, when it came time to build, all the funding went poof. Looking back, there's like a 70% chance it would've turned to shrapnel anyways, but it would've still been fun to run it even at low load to vary the outputs. 

Anyways, tuning the inputs and output was a huge effort and required a lot of modeling, and the power controls would be tough. It isn't as simple as balancing the peak hp of the inputs since the curves are far different as well. I love eCVTs on paper for their mechanical efficiency, but they're a great example of the devil being in the details. If, and it's a big if, an OEM got behind it and provided a modular system that was parameterized with their own models, it could be done, but I don't see any of them ever committing to that. 

A parallel hybrid system like that Sienna motor isn't as efficient, but it is 100x more doable from a shed, and that counts for a lot. 

How much battery would you use, and what would that weigh? Looks like a Gen 2 Prius battery is 80-100 lbs, plus inverter, cables, etc.

If you want a wide torque band, it might be easier to just add boost (not that a hot rod hybrid wouldn't be pretty cool and unique).

STM317 said:

How much battery would you use, and what would that weigh? Looks like a Gen 2 Prius battery is 80-100 lbs, plus inverter, cables, etc.

If you want a wide torque band, it might be easier to just add boost (not that a hot rod hybrid wouldn't be pretty cool and unique).

Assuming I was using the rear traction motor only and not hybrid, I was thinking about a Ford Fusion battery. They are relatively compact (reddit says 50-ish lbs) and 300VDC, unsure about the current carrying capacity though. For an autox stomper I'd imagine the torque would punch through the weight handicap. 
 

https://www.theautopian.com/some-geniuses-are-swapping-ford-batteries-into-old-honda-insights-to-make-diy-plug-in-hybrids/

Similarly it seems that the FoMoCo PHEV batteries are also relatively small and I would probably consider using these for a parallel hybrid system. 

In reply to cyow5 :

Wouldn't happen to have a copy of your paper would you? I along with a few of my college buddies are always up for an engineering challenge. 

Part of the struggle will always be energy density of electric power sources.

Batteries are heavy...really heavy. The power they can produce relative to their weight makes them a real challenge to incorporate into race applications.

I was always intrigued by the Porsche KERS that transferred braking energy into a big flywheel in the floor board. Not only was that energy made available on acceleration, but the inertia of the spinning wheel kept the vehicle flat in turns.

The danger of huge spinning weights in a crash scenario isn't as fun to consider...

In reply to 4cylndrfury :

At a high level it seems that Bosch has it figured out for the LMDh cars  

https://www.bosch-motorsport.com/products-and-services/product-highlights/hybrid-system-lmdh/

Am I the entire engineering body of Bosch? No. But the philosophy I think is solid and I think it's very doable to do a parallel hybrid setup similar to what Bosch is doing in my non-existent garage. I suspect that by the time I figure out how to get everything controlled, solid state batteries will be the norm 

In reply to hunter47 :

I'm not a big fan of electric cars at all, and even I am excited to see what they can do with solid state batteries.

Electric airplanes will be pretty awesome

https://fcsrace.com/shop/ols/products/awd-honda-kit/v/FCS8806awd-4
days like today are what make me miss having a garage (read: my parents' garage). AWD Integra conversion kit + sienna motor + K20 swap? Maaaan that'd be cool.

obviously wouldn't bolt up directly but its a start! 

OpenInverter has a ton of information regarding the Q211 MGR (the motor generator - rear) that I posted:

https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=190&sid=2e161c05bdfedb2c3e076045f6a3e0bf&start=250

Looks like you can control these with a Gen 3 Prius inverter, which is totally hackable:

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Gen3_Board

And Motec has a firmware package for their M1 series of ECUs, which also allows control of both ICE and EV together:

https://www.motec.com.au/products/M150EV

Someone do something about this so I can live vicariously before I make bad 1bd/1ba apartment decisions.