My Dad and I loaded up the truck and headed back home. Though a little banged up with some missing parts, the ATV was overall a good buy. The frame was in decent condition, and had a lot of potential as an EV conversion. Plus, I was glad to have finally found a four-wheeler.
After making the trek back to the shop, I started to consider different motor options to replace the original 86cc engine. I considered many reasonable options for a miniature ATV of that size, and then found an extra AC-24, the same type of motor that we have powering our 1976 Porsche 914 on the Electric Vehicle Team. We had just received a number of Sevcon controllers, and with Roberto working on his electric motorcycle project using an AC-20 as well, I was eager to start experimenting with more induction motor control. Despite the small size of the ATV, I was determined to incorporate the unreasonably big motor in the quad drivetrain for some serious offroading power.
Jacob helped me to wheel the motor over and size it up to the ATV frame. An immediate problem was that the motor did not fit laterally across the frame, and therefore couldn't accommodate the original chain drive configuration for turning the rear axle...
The massive motor actually fit nicely down the length of the frame though, and I liked the option. The chain drive swingarm setup would need to be adapted into a 90-degree drive configuration, and the motor would take up nearly the entire frame. I also had no idea how the batteries and motor controller would fit on the setup, but I was ready for the challenge.
With that, the project goals transformed from another simple, small-scale conversion to an entirely new effort to cram as many oversized components as possible on an undersized ATV. As the street-legal Porsche could easily reach 75mph on the highway, I was excited by the possibilities of using the AC-24 on the much smaller ATV!
