Engine swaps are nothing new for car enthusiasts but what’s certainly not common is for combustion engines to be swapped out for electric motors. That’s precisely what one daring enthusiast has done to his Audi. The V8 engine that this car came with was removed from the bay to make way for a Tesla motor which now powers this car.
The owner of this Audi, Sam, had to get creative in order to get the electric motor and the inverter to fit in the engine bay. It was hooked up to a custom 10.5:1 drive gear.
That’s better than the 9.73:1 gear ratio of a Tesla Model S which means this car will be snappier with the shifts even if loses some top speed. The original 85 kW capacity of the donor Tesla has been preserved as 16 battery packs have been installed in the car.
The engine swap has been successful and a run at the dyno revealed that it has 359 horsepower. That’s close to the figures of a single motor Tesla Model 3 that can reach around 380 horsepower with the 85 kWh battery.
Sam does mention that there remains work to be done on this car and perhaps we will hear more about it in the future. For now, though, it’s just exciting to see what people will end up doing with these powerful electric motors as electric cars become more common on the roads and subsequently in the junkyards as well.
Filed in . Read more about Social Hit and Tesla. Source: thedrive