Goblin EV?

Poopie420

Member
What do you guys think about an all-electric version of the Goblin?

Here's my plan:

Order a customized Goblin city kit with:

- no gas tank
- no radiator
- no exhaust
- no intake

..and instead of a donor Cobalt I would buy the misc parts as needed separately:

- seats and belts
- wheels/hubs/brakes/suspension
- electric speed controller/motor/pedals
- charger/battery array
- steering wheel/shaft/rack
- electric status display (charge, range, speed)

I'm thinking it would be Direct Drive with the ESC doing the speed control and interfacing with its own HEPA (hall-effect pedal assembly) so no need for a transmission.

Heres where I am thinking I would need to do some customization:

a) Building a battery array that can fit in the space of where the fuel tank normally is.

b) Making a custom mount for the electric motor (TransWarp 11)

c) Figuring out how to mate the electric motor to the Goblin Rear Suspension/DriveTrain

Any thoughts/ideas? Anything I could be missing?
 

TomsGarage

Active Member
Interesting, but not sure why would go with the goblin kit if you are not using a cobalt donor. It's made specifically to use the subframe, dash, etc for that car. You will end up spending a lot of money on bolts and fasteners and parts that you would normally get form the donor.

Also, not sure if I see the appeal of electric power in this car. Looking at that motor it only has about 40hp and 130 ft-lbs of torque, can't imagine that being too fun. I can't imagine the range being too far with the limited room for batteries.
 

Lonny

Administrator
Staff member
I think an electric Goblin would be very cool. I only live about a mile from my shop so range would not be a problem.

I think you would still need to by a donor cobalt for most of your parts.

You will still need rear cobalt hubs for your front spindles, pedal assembly, brake master cylinder, brake reservoir, brake hoses, turn signal/headlight switch, ignition switch, BCM, seats, seat belts, subframe, control arms, struts, electric power steering unit, steering shaft, steering rack, tie rods, brake rotors, calipers, bearing hubs with knuckles, axles and a lot of fasteners.

You can probably find a small differential rear-end that you can hook to the original cobalt axles and mount it on the cobalt subframe.

The electric motor can attach directly to it.

You should be able to carry about 500 pounds of batteries in the rear and 100 pounds on the front.

Personally I would be more interested in more power and less range.

I think it could be scary fast. Some of the Tesla cars are very fast and have good range.
 

Poopie420

Member
I think an electric Goblin would be very cool. I only live about a mile from my shop so range would not be a problem.

I think you would still need to by a donor cobalt for most of your parts.

You will still need rear cobalt hubs for your front spindles, pedal assembly, brake master cylinder, brake reservoir, brake hoses, turn signal/headlight switch, ignition switch, BCM, seats, seat belts, subframe, control arms, struts, electric power steering unit, steering shaft, steering rack, tie rods, brake rotors, calipers, bearing hubs with knuckles, axles and a lot of fasteners.

You can probably find a small differential rear-end that you can hook to the original cobalt axles and mount it on the cobalt subframe.

The electric motor can attach directly to it.

You should be able to carry about 500 pounds of batteries in the rear and 100 pounds on the front.

Personally I would be more interested in more power and less range.

I think it could be scary fast. Some of the Tesla cars are very fast and have good range.
Lonny, thanks for your detailed reply!

Totally agree that a donor Cobalt is still needed. I'm looking for a 2009/2010 salvage Cobalt now hopefully I'll be able to secure one sooner than later.

For the batteries I did some calcs and for the range and power and range I want 400lbs of batteries in the back and 100lbs in the front for 500lbs total is more than enough.

The motor will be about 200lbs, and the misc systems (BMS, ESC, Charger, Liquid+Air Cooling) will add another 100lbs of weight.

Btw, are you basing your battery weight capacity estimate on the regular frame or the new extended frame? I'd be going for the extended frame for my order.

Re: rear-end differential - how would I go about looking for that? The TransWarp 11 motor comes with a Slip-Yoke setup that is able to mount directly onto a "shorty" Chevy Turbo 400 transmission. The regular Warp 11 motor does not have that housing and is just as is.

The first part of my plan is now to secure a working Cobalt donor, put a deposit on an extended frame Goblin kit and strip the donor Cobalt while I wait for my Stage 1 of the kit. From there, once I jump into assembly/installation I'm hoping I'll know whether to a) go straight to electric or b) build the Goblin as-is with the Cobalt engine first and then convert to electric later. The major thing that is making me lean towards B is cost: 4k for the motor, 6k for the misc systems and 6k for the batts. that's 16k on top. might have to buy those pieces slowly/second-hand. No reason I can't enjoy a gas-powered Goblin until then! :)
 

Adam

Administrator
Staff member
For the rear end diff, you could go with something like the Pontiac Solstice rear end:



It is unlikely that the axles will be the right length or have the right splines on the ends but the outer half of the Cobalt axles could be welded to the inner half of the Solstice axles to adapt the rear end to the hubs from your donor Cobalt. Modifying axles like this is commonly done by machining a boss on one of the shafts and a hole in the other shaft. The boss is inserted into the hole to keep the the shafts aligned when they are welded.
 

JRod

New Member
I'm interested in this. How about a Chevy Spark EV as a donor? They have tons of torque (327 lb-ft), don't weigh a lot (2,866 lbs) and have good range (82 mi). Chevy Spark EV's are available with low miles.



How feasible is this and how would the Goblin frame need to be modified?
This would be way cool!
 

Andy

Well-Known Member
I think you would run into volume problems. I own a nissan leaf and have worked on EV cars before. If you stripped the battery pack down to bare essentials along with the drive train you could probably fit it in there. It would be quite a lot of work to strip it down and then make it work right. It would be a lot of custom fab work and you would need your own lathe, mill, etc. Very cool to do but time consuming and costly.

I also own a zero electric motorcycle and I would recommend to strip that to use for parts before a EV car. Parts are much smaller than the EV car counterparts. EV cars don't seem to be concerned with weight right now whereas the zero company is. Just me 2 cents. 2 zero motors with one zero battery pack would go for about 80 miles.
 

Ross

Goblin Guru
BorgWarner modified an Ariel Nomad (at 15:40 into this video) to be electric.
I was hoping to find it on their website, but no luck. I did find EV parts if anyone want to do a goblin.
 

RouteAbel

Well-Known Member
This is an old thread, I think a school did end up building a Tesla version of the goblin. It's something I may still attempt in the future but decided it would be wise to build a standard goblin first.
 

Waterdriver

Goblin Guru
Sounds like an awesome idea going EV!
Question, would it be easier to use the Cobalt 5spd transaxle and mating the electric motor to it? Then you could have a range of gear ratios to use with the electric motor and have a proven drivetrain that is already built and works. Saving a heap of fabrication time. It would require a mount to be fabricated to connect the transaxle to the upper frame mounts. Electronics could be then mounted in said cradle above the motor and transaxle.
The GXE Corvette utilizes the stock transmission. https://www.motortrend.com/news/genovation-gxe-corvette-the-800-hp-750000-green-hypercar/
Just my 2 cents.
 
Last edited:

KLMOTORSPORTS

Well-Known Member
Sounds like this would be an awesome project...the thing I like about these is there is a multitude of ways to customize and build these cars!
 
Top