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EVSwap Land Cruiser 80 Series

Here are some more photos from wheeling a few weeks ago my buddy Colten took: www.instagram.com/Colten.photo


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Got a big thumbs up from Matt himself at The Wrecker Games! He was riding with Yankum Ropes who rolled his 80 series a little bit earlier!
 
Extremely cool project! Do you know if you net saved weight? The 1FZ is a fat pig, but that's a lot of batteries too.
 
Thanks! It's almost exactly the same weight. When it was 100% stock it was 5180lbs and as it sits now it's 5280lbs. But now it has 33s and steel bumpers, winch etc. Going to add another battery pack and that will bring the weight up a bit more.
 
Didn't see it covered in the other build thread, but may have missed it, how are you powering the winch? 12v battery handling the load and DC/DC converter to keep the battery topped up?
 
egdinger said:
Didn't see it covered in the other build thread, but may have missed it, how are you powering the winch? 12v battery handling the load and DC/DC converter to keep the battery topped up?
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Yep, exactly. I have an Optima yellow top and the DC-DC can output up to 2500 watts so it actually runs the winch amazingly well. Haven't used it to get unstuck but I pulled a couple of tree stumps out!
 
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Yesterday I went out and really pushed the truck to the limits of the battery. I climbed up about 4,700 vertical feet and did a total distance of 42 miles (21 out and 21 back). At the very top of the mountain I was at 12,150 ft elevation and my battery lowest percentage was 18%. When I made it back down into town my battery was at 30%. This included a few miles of driving on the interstate and mountain roads before getting to the trailhead. My efficiency is about 2.1 miles/kwh which is about the same as what the Rivian and Hummer EV get.

I went out with our 4x4 club and met with the nonprofit Stay the Trail and the US Forest Service Rangers. Our club sponsors Kingston Peak trail so every year we go and clean the trail of trash and complete any service projects the Forest Service has for us. This year due to tons of snow the trail was not open yet. We went and opened the gates with the rangers and cleared out some snow drifts so that the trail could be officially opened. The ranger districts are really low on staff, there is only a handful of Rangers for tens of thousands of acres of land. They need all the help that they can get and our club is dedicated to keeping the trails open. Stay the Trail is dedicated to educating new OHV users about the legal 4x4 trails and conservation. In CO going off trail is illegal and results in the closing down of 4x4 routes and other bad stuff. The mountain wildlife is very delicate especially above tree-line.

This is definitely the furthest I've driven the truck in one go and the lowest I've taken the battery out in the wilderness and the highest elevation I've reached yet. It was all uphill so I knew that at any point I could turn around and coast pretty much all the way back to civilization. I also had buddies with straps in case I needed a tow. In the end I didn't need any of these contingencies and I was able to get all the way to the peak and down the other side to the service project area and then back up and over back to where I started. I had a few nailbiting moments on the way up, but once at the peak my confidence grew.

The truck performed flawlessly as always. Not a single issue cropped up. The Rangers thought it was awesome and we met a lot of hikers who were blown away by it too.

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I will be at Ohm on the Range's State of Charge '23 again this year! There are still spots open for the conference as well as Legacy EV hands-on training. Or come out on Saturday for the "La Vida Volta" EV car show expo which is FREE and open to the public!

Check out the website soc23.com

There are going to be some amazing EV conversions including TWO DeLorean conversions, the amazing EV Supercar, a '65 Shelby Cobra (replica) and of course my EVSwap Land Cruiser!

Public EV car show will be on Saturday the 5th at 3-7pm at Golden High School, Golden, CO.

Photo from last year's event:
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Reminder to come out to Ohm on the Range State of Charge EV car show this Saturday 3-7:30pm at Golden High School. Same day as the Golden Cruise!

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I got the chance to drive some amazing EV conversions and also run my 80 through a little autocross course after the State of Charge event last week. Glad I fixed my rear sway bar link!

 
Check out this interview that Hypercraft put out! Some other amazing EV conversions are featured as well!

 
Check out my video from the Offroad Wrecker Games earlier this year! Sand Hollow is such an amazing place and the EVSwap Land Cruiser drives so nice offroad!

 
This is pretty cool. I hate new EVs because they are overly complex and unreliable mostly because you are tethered to less the stellar dealer support.

I welcome cutting those piles of junk up and using them for parts to repower old trucks.

What are you doing for climate control both heating and cooling? What about power brakes and steering? I may have missed that.
 
Skinny said:
This is pretty cool. I hate new EVs because they are overly complex and unreliable mostly because you are tethered to less the stellar dealer support.

I welcome cutting those piles of junk up and using them for parts to repower old trucks.

What are you doing for climate control both heating and cooling? What about power brakes and steering? I may have missed that.
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Dude, 100%. I feel exactly the same way. I got to drive some converted muscle cars and they were just unbelievable. All the power, none of the nannies.

My 80 has no heater and no AC. Just windows up or down :dustin:

I could have added both but it was just not a priority. I will probably be adding heat before this winter. It just uses the battery even faster....

For brakes I have a GM vacuum pump which just pulls vac on the brake booster and runs off 12v. The power steering is using a Volvo hydraulic ps pump which also runs on 12v.
 
Are you going with a fuel fired heater to get hot coolant into the heater core or do you have some other wild plan?

I know there are a lot of high voltage DC compressors out there but I don't think anyone makes a controller for them. That is certainly an area lacking in the aftermarket.

You need to find a little two cylinder Kubota diesel and stuff that under the frame rails. That would give you heat, something to drive an AC compressor, and a source for charging.

You could take a full step back from EV and go Hybrid 🤣
 
Skinny said:
Are you going with a fuel fired heater to get hot coolant into the heater core or do you have some other wild plan?

I know there are a lot of high voltage DC compressors out there but I don't think anyone makes a controller for them. That is certainly an area lacking in the aftermarket.

You need to find a little two cylinder Kubota diesel and stuff that under the frame rails. That would give you heat, something to drive an AC compressor, and a source for charging.

You could take a full step back from EV and go Hybrid 🤣
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No I'm just going to add a resistive heater that burns electricity. Either 12v or 400v. 400v is more efficient but also more complicated.
 
I think a pair of good seats with hearing and ventilation will go a long way to cut down on climate control power usage.

400v will get er done 🤣

I think I also saw a square body Volvo wagon with a wood stove in it. 😎
 
Skinny said:
I think a pair of good seats with hearing and ventilation will go a long way to cut down on climate control power usage.

400v will get er done 🤣

I think I also saw a square body Volvo wagon with a wood stove in it. 😎
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I do have some heating elements to put in the seats, but I recently acquired some really nice 80 seats with no tears and good leather which is so hard to find and now I'm nervous about taking them apart! I'll probably also install those when the weather gets cooler.

Why stop at a wood stove :laughing:

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Very very cool 😎
If I started my 58 build 20 years later, it'd definitely be an EV. My neighborhood EV is a 48v Club Car, rarely needs any service. Actually surprised that the haters stayed home.
 
I wish I could find that article from four wheeler or four wheel an off-road or one of those magazines. It was early 90s a much older FJ cruiser that had an EV conversion done with a diesel GEN as a back up charging for the flooded lead acid batteries.

The thing that stands out the most from that article was how much they liked the quietness. All they heard was gears whirring and rocks crunching under tires.
 
J1000 said:
I do have some heating elements to put in the seats, but I recently acquired some really nice 80 seats with no tears and good leather which is so hard to find and now I'm nervous about taking them apart! I'll probably also install those when the weather gets cooler.

Why stop at a wood stove :laughing:

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🤣🤣🤣

It's not hard to take the seat apart. Hardest part is getting that big bitch out of the truck.

Just get a good hog ring pliers kit before starting.
 
might be my favorite EV conversion I've seen, very cool man :smokin:

I bet its awesome having not only the instant torque for wheeling, but also the QUIET of not having the internal combustion engine noise
 
Thatg9659 said:
I wish I could find that article from four wheeler or four wheel an off-road or one of those magazines. It was early 90s a much older FJ cruiser that had an EV conversion done with a diesel GEN as a back up charging for the flooded lead acid batteries.

The thing that stands out the most from that article was how much they liked the quietness. All they heard was gears whirring and rocks crunching under tires.
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budget76 said:
might be my favorite EV conversion I've seen, very cool man :smokin:

I bet its awesome having not only the instant torque for wheeling, but also the QUIET of not having the internal combustion engine noise
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Thanks guys! Yes it is awesome how quiet it is out on the trails. The gear whirring and power steering pump is really all I can hear mechanically. And yes, you can hear every little noise the tires make. I've found it's a big advantage of EVs whether rock crawling or on an autocross course. You can hear the tires load up and start to sing long before you could hear that type of thing in an ICE vehicle. It lets you have a lot more feedback from the vehicle.

Also the way the electric motor delivers torque and power is just amazing. You have so much more control over the vehicle without the torque converter or automatic getting in the way, even a manual transmission gets in the way sometimes. Another thing is that it's just got one gear ratio, so when you are in low range you can go from 0 to 35 MPH seemlessly (or 0-70 MPH in high range). What that means in practice is if you accelerate towards a sand hill you can maintain that momentum and just fly up the hill effortlessly. I was at Sand Hollow earlier this year and a gas 80 kept getting stuck because as soon as the truck started the climb, it would shift down a gear or two and lose all its momentum. My truck just dug in and flew up the hill.
 
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