The blog for conversion of vintage BMW 3.0 CS coupes to Tesla powered electric vehicles
One CSE on the Road
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As I've mentioned before, my CSE project has taken a backseat to finishing the first CSE for my son-in-law. That car (I'll call it the Silver CSE from here on, versus my Blue CSE) was started by Paul Dexter and was the initial inspiration for my car. It was on the road as a full Tesla-powered EV, albeit in primer, for most of 2021. In late 2021 my son-in-law purchased the car from Paul with the promise of having me finish it.
Sizzle Reel - click to view
I tore it down, rebuilt all the brakes and suspension, installed cooling lines for the batteries, relocated the BMS, cleanup up the underside, rewired everything, installed air conditioning, sent it off for paint, finished and programmed all the fancy instrumentation, replaced all the rubber bits, replaced all the trim, fixed the sunroof, finished the interior, etc. and got it back on the road in August, 2022 for their wedding.
The underside of the Silver car with Tesla Model S large drive unit in the back
Installing battery box
Under the hood. 12 Tesla Model S batteries and a Tesla electric AC Compressor
But it wasn't fully sorted so it came back to my house for all the final sorting. It wasn't until June, 2023 that I finally delivered it. To celebrate we did a couple photoshoots and a Sizzle Reel. The photographer, Royce Rumsey, also did an article on the car for Exposures.
At the Lyons Air Museum, July 2023
Complete with custom CSE Owner's Handbook
It came out really nice. It is super fun to drive. The new owner loves it and that makes me happy. Now I need to get up the gumption to work on my own car....
As you probably know, I'm not converting just one BMW 3.0 CS coupe to Tesla power but two. One for me and one for my son-in-law, Alex. In fact, I'm involved in a third project for a customer as well. Brett Perkins at P3 Conversions is handling that build and I just consult a bit but I thought it would be interesting to compare how each project has tackled similar problems in different ways.
There are 350 DC volts of Telsa LiIon batteries in my car but I need a 12 volt source to kick off the electronics that energize all the complex systems such as the precharge controller and traction contactors. Therefore, I use a small LiIon 12v battery designed for a motorcycle. The problem is, I keep some things, like my Raspberry Pi gauge computer constantly running so that everything works instantly at the turn of the key and that drains the little 30 Ah battery pretty quickly, like in a day or two.
You've read about the fancy digital dash app I've written that displays all sorts of information on a display in the hole that used to belong to the tachometer. But that still leaves four other analog gauges in the instrument panel: The speedometer, clock, fuel, and temperature gauges. These are old school VDO gauges that just look proper and cool so I want to make them all work with this new digital vehicle.
