# Considering a 1999 Saab 9-5 Conversion



## Arcfyre (Jul 26, 2011)

Here's the story:

We have a 1999 Saab 9-5 in great condition other than having recently developed a rod knock. For some reason, replacement gasoline engines for this model are ridiculously hard to come by and outrageously expensive ($3,500 for an engine with 150,000 miles on it...). Since the rest of the car is in amazing shape, I have been toying with the idea of converting it to an electric vehicle. 

As a donor car, it is probably not the worst one. It is a sedan configuration with a spacious trunk, and it has a 5-speed manual transmission. 

As for my skill level, I consider myself handy, but I am no mechanic. I am looking to get maybe 50 miles worth of range out of a charge, with a top speed of about 65 mph. As we are still just starting out, I am looking to do this as economically as possible. Any thoughts or recommendations would be much appreciated.

-Stefan


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

Welcome-

Pretty much any small/midsize car can be converted to electric and have the performance specs you are looking for. 

You are in lithium territory if you want 50 miles usable range at 55-60mph. You will want probably 15kwh minimum usable battery capacity with that vehicle to get there (160ah at 120v, or 90ah at 200v, etc); based on a totally off-the-cuff guess of 300wh/mile or so of efficiency for such a car. There are many online tools, back-of-envelope calculations and rules of thumb you can use to compute expected range for an EV of certain specifications under certain conditions. Suggest finding and using them.

65mph top speed is no problem. Presuming you don't have expectations of extreme performance, a 9" DC motor and 1000A controller (zilla, soliton, etc) would work fine and allow for future growth / upgrades.

I am not too familiar with the drivetrain configuration of a saab 9-5 so I can't say whether or not adapting the transmission to the electric motor would present any out-of-ordinary issues; this might warrant some investigation on your part.

At new retail prices you are looking at around $15-20K for this conversion; about half that will be batteries and bms.

recommend lots of reading on the wiki and looking at as many conversions online and in person as possible.

good luck and detroit rocks


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Arcfyre said:


> Here's the story:
> 
> We have a 1999 Saab 9-5 in great condition ... It is a sedan configuration with a spacious trunk, and it has a 5-speed manual transmission.
> 
> As for my skill level, I consider myself handy, but I am no mechanic. I am looking to get maybe 50 miles worth of range out of a charge, with a top speed of about 65 mph.



sounds like a great candidate, only slightly on the heavy side. for a starting point for a conservative economical drivetrain/battery config consider:
Warp9 motor, Soliton Jr. controller, 144v of 160ah lithium (45 cells)
a BMS is optional in my opinion, but you have to decide that after reading the many threads on BMS/not and top/bottom balancing as well as the pros/cons of slow cheap onboard chargers with set parameters versus the expense of the more variable or super high amp ones. 

I am not sure the typical tranny adaptor guys have a suitable adaptor off-the-shelf for you, so you'll need to call around and see... Personally, I would highly recommend a 'clutched' design that keeps your original clutch/flywheel. Search around and see if anyone has done your car before and ask where they got their tranny adaptor.

mechanical DESIRE, hand-tools, and a friend would can help weld up battery racks is all you need. Living in MI, you'll have to insulate/heat battery boxes in winter for best performance.


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## Arcfyre (Jul 26, 2011)

Thank you for the positive responses.

I am looking around right now to see if anyone has done this car before. As was mentioned, the vehicle is a little bit heavy for an EV conversion, but I am sure that I could make it work. 

I am still in the early stages of planning this. I have a lot of reading to do, and am grateful for the helpful suggestions and experience I see here.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

I don't see any complete modern saabs in the 'garage' here, but you might find something in a web-wide search. I would also contact Randy at CanEv.com to see if he has an adaptor, or would consider adding this model to his inventory.


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## Saabman (Jan 29, 2017)

I realize this is aVERY old thread but did this project gain any traction I'm giving consideration to converting the same model?


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

It appears that the original 9-5 was built on the same platform as the Saturn L-series, so if anyone has converted one of those it might provide some useful information.


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## Saabman (Jan 29, 2017)

Yes it appears to be a fairly widely used GM platform so hopeful someone has done something similar


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