Diesel Electric Hybrid Conversion
 

I recently looked into the Electromagnetic Telma Brake and realized that if I am going to spent $6,500 for a brake to generate heat, how much more would it be to convert the truck into a true Diesel-Electric Hybrid Truck.

I figure throw in a 1 ft deep bed of batteries in the box, a 100 hp DC motor between the TC and the rear axle, a bit of computer magic and off you go.

Has anybody attempted this before or know of a vendor that would sell such a coversion kit? Any idea on the theoretical extra milage that could be gotten. Looking to convert a 91' F350 with a 7.3l non-turbo, E4OD, 4x4 with 4:10 axles. Could we push the milage from 16 to 24 mpg? (That would be US gallons)

I know it is a little bit out there, but would appreciate any feedback from anyone that has looked at it before.

A very interesting idea. Can't wait to see some ideas about why this could or could not work.

How much weight could a 100Hp DC motor efficiently drive? With the truck and engine coupled with a big motor and a bed full of batteries....the thing would have to weigh somewhere around 12-13,000 pounds.

Just use WVO and you have a Veggie Hybrid
 

For that kind of money you could convert your truck to veggie oil 2-3 times over. No huge load of batteries to carry around either.

I supplement my diesel with WVO. So I start the truck on diesel warm it by driving 4-10 miles depending on the outside temps and switch over to WVO. Before I get to my destination I switch back to diesel, to purge. By doing this I get between 30-50 MPG of purchased diesel. I gotten has much as 1104 miles between fill ups. My commute to work is 61 miles round trip. Just think if I was driving across country once the truck is warm and if I had enough WVO on board I could go thousands of miles before buying more diesel.

The savings add up pretty fast as well.

Erick Panger
http://www.leskwvo.com
2005 F250 PSD
Plant Drive Two tank WVO system.
Hotstk, Vormax, A1000 and Vegtherm

Hamberger,

You left out the generator.

Are you proposing a diesel electric setup like a train locomotive or more like current production hybrid automobiles? I have thought about the locomotive setup myself but I think it would go something like this for a full sized pickup. I think you would need a smaller diesel, maybe a 4 cylinder to run a generator that would in turn charge batteries and power the electric motor that would run through a manual gearbox. The electric motor would probably be less than 50 hp.

The typical hybrid setup is probably too complicated for the do it yourselfer.

I have seen a site on the web where guys were making pure electric conversions from old Porsche 914 cars and they were getting very good performance with only 15hp. Of course their overall weight was probably half of the diesel electric truck conversion.

Gene

Thanks Gene,


I was thinking of splicing a DC generator between my transfer case and the rear axle much like a locomotive set-up. ( and you are right the 100 hp is probably way to big, 30 to 50 is more like it)

Another interesting alternative would be to drive the DC generator off the PTO take-off on the ZF5 Transmission. Unfortunately my 91 currently has an E4OD tranny which could be converted but costs eventually would go thru the roof. The ZF5 conversion alone would cost about $CDN 4,000 (assume I do all my own labour)

Now I do have a ZF5 already in my 93 F250 which currently gets about 18.6 mpg. I might do some more thinking on that one. I wonder what the PTO rated capacity on the ZF5 might be?

The advantages are that with the crew cab you have lots of room to work with. Lots of room for batteries in the box.

My plan was to keep the 7.3l diesel the same. For towing up long hills the batteries would not have enough juice and it would get awfully painful to try and haul a fifth wheel with a four banger and only five gears. Besides the costs to change out the diesel as well would be to much for me to handle.

Do you have any information (web sites) on the computer control of a hybrid system? Any idea on costs, batteries and the like?

I don't understand how this works. The generator mounts after the tranny to charge the batteries? Then the batteries supply power to what to drive the wheels?

What I am refering to is a full time electric motor to power the truck with an onboard charging system powered by a smaller diesel. The only thing the diesel would do is run the generator to keep the batteries up. The electric motor would be attached to a manual transmission through an adaptor on the bellhousing. It would sit very low in the engine compartment allowing room above for the smaller engine and generator. It would take some fabrication to accomplish it.

From your previous post: I don't think you can run anything off of the PTO at the same time the truck is moving.

I wish I could find the link for the guys who were converting the 914s. They got remarkable performance from just 15 horsepower. Tons of instant torque. The same guy built an electric dragster that was on tv about a year ago. Of course there system didn't have the on board generator, it just plugged into a charger at home.

Gene

Gene,

The PTO idea was just a thought. Since the ZF5 has the PTO take-off I could use a cardan drive which would allow me to mount the entire DC motor, batteries etc. in the box. Power would either flow from the ZF5 to the DC motor or from the DC Motor to the ZF5. Probably not the most efficient way to do it, but if the ZF5 PTO can handle it power wise, maybe this would not be such a bad idea. Would you know where I can get some Cardan PTO take-off equipment for the ZF5? I already put a post on the ZF website.

The ideal place of course would be a DC motor with a shaft that is rated for the full truck Horsepower plus DC Motor power and is spliced between the T.C. and rear axle.
I like your idea of the 4 cylinder diesel (maybe a small VW diesel) with Electric Motor, the only thing is that is quite a change and would get into some pretty big $$$. Ideally if I want to maintain the current truck power output I would need about a 125 to 150 hp diesel minimum and then couple it with a DC motor with enough ummph to get me to 200 hp.

I know this thread has been quiet for about a month, but this is something I'm interested in as well so I'm resurrecting it.

If your going a diesel-electric approach, why bother with a transmission at all? Trains don't need 'em. An electric motor can make its maximum torque at 0rpm and can spin up to piston engine speeds so I would think that a tranny would be wholely unnecessary. You could simply mount the motor to the input of the transfer case, or maybe even have seperate motors for each axle. If I didn't already have a money-sink of a truck project, I just might do it.

i hear that dodge has a diesel electric hybrid,what they did is is hook a DC motor to the fly wheel in place of a starter so when you come to a stop the engine shuts off then when you hit the gas the DC motor gets the truck up to 5 or 10 mph and then starts the engine up. The DC motor is also always engaged so they dont need a alternater. Im not sure what the increase in mpg is probally minimal.

Any thoughts on this subject are appreciated.

I will have to follow up on the Dodge. Personnally I am not sure whether driving a DC motor off the flywheel is such a good idea.

Driving off the PTO on the ZF5 has drawbacks too it turns out.

Putting the DC motor between the Tranny and rear axle loses any torque advantage of a tranny.

The best place would be to have the DC motor direct coupled with the Diesel engine. (this might be a problem with the automatics) and the there would be no payback by the time this conversion is done.

It looks to me the biggest bang in regards to a milage increase that could be attained for these trucks would be to go with a second overdrive unit to double up on the gears and get the Engine RPM down whenever possible.

The new issue of 4wheel&off-road (april2006) has a article on hybrid trucks. It mentions that only 100 of those dodge diesel hybrids where made and only sold to fleet customers.

2 ways
 

A while back I heard that they made a prototype diesel-electric humvee, with a small engine and 4 independent electric motors -- one for each wheel. Better economy(smaller engine) and manueverability, because it could turn all it's wheel independently (it could turn the front wheels towards each other, and the back wheels away from each other, spin one side forward and the other side reverse and turn in place like a tank.

An idea I had was to have a traditional 2wd powertrain, in a 4wd truck. Instead of linking the front axle to a transfer case, connect it to a generator/motor. Instead of braking to control speed downhill, switch on the generator and charge up a bank of batteries. Then you can use that power through the motor to give the truck an extra push going uphill. Or, put the engine's transmission in neutral when you pull off the highway, and let the engine and turbo wind down and cool off while you just use battery power. Then you get to turn off the engine and hop out when you stop somewhere, while still being nice to your parts.
Likewise, you can start the engine in the morning and just let it idle to warm up, while you start driving right away.
Or, use the electric motor for 4wd. It should be simple to computer control the electric motor and not let it turn faster than the rear wheels.