2011 Leaf charging upgrade

Has anyone attempted taking an inverter/charger from a 2013+ Leaf and put it on a 2011? Will it fit?? I don't know how much or if they changed the motor housings between years.

My thought would be a 2011 Leaf with both the 3.3KW 2011 charger behind the back seat and 6.6kw under the hood charging the car at basically 10KW (9.9kw).

I know it would probably need something like a 3 way CAN bridge between both chargers and the car with code to divide up the available power from the J1772 as not to overload them. As well as honor the BMS charging requests. I don't know what the gauge of the wire on the back of the J1772 is but it looks to be to be at least 8GA and could be upgraded with a little work I am sure.

It seems like such an obvious upgrade to me as a 2011 would massive recharging power for a upgraded 40kwh or 62kwh battery at that point.

If I can find out if the inverters physically fit, the wiring, CAN Bridge and code for the CAN bridge I think I can handle.

Am I missing something obvious?? Why hasn't someone tried this? have they?

A lot changed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160219091336/http://articles.sae.org/11993/
https://electroavtosam.com.ua/forums/download/file.php?id=13730 briefly touches upon the changes.

I haven't watched most of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-hfJw2fMI, but it might help.

That's actually the video that gave me the idea for the swap. He has another video where he gets it running using a aftermarket VCM. I have yet to see though a side by side comparison on JUST the motor without the stack on top. My gut feeling is the stack above the motor is different but the core motor is the same... and heck if it came to it just swap the whole motor and transaxle. lol

But I do realize at some point you are basically taking the guts of a 2013+ and putting in in a 2011. I would find that an amusing project too if only I had the time. But if I was going to do something like that I would find a 2018 with the 40 kwh battery that was maybe in a bad rollover and switch the whole VCM electronics and everything over.

With a Sawzall, 3D printer, Welder, CNC plasma cutter and most importantly duck tape just anything is possible with enough patience, time and money.

hackntheworld said:

My gut feeling is the stack above the motor is different but the core motor is the same... and heck if it came to it just swap the whole motor and transaxle. lol

Click to expand...

The motor's not even the same. The '11 and '12 Leaf used EM61. Nissan moved to EM57 for '13+

Did you look at the paper at https://electroavtosam.com.ua/forums/download/file.php?id=13730?

Folks who wanted to AC charge '11 and '12 Leafs, got the Brusa charger: https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=12323. You'll notice from JeremyW's sig, he got rid of his Leaf long ago. It ended up with BiggieJohn per https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=457964#p457964

Searching EM61 I see much better photos now of the 2011 motor. Yea that's what I was missing. When I was searching just for 2011 Leaf motors I was getting reference photos of the EM57.

Yea looks like what I was thinking about would not be feasible without a full motor swap. Not out of the question but not practical.

As far as the Brusa Chargers go yes I saw those and the links to the how-to but it looks like the chargers are not made anymore and I cannot find any at a reasonable price. Brusa charger prices for a 2011 quickly approach what I can pickup a cheap 2013 or newer for. Lol I can't win.

It was an idea anyways. I bought my Leaf's to have a project to work on. For now I'll just work with what I have.

I have two 2011's one wrecked at 14k miles with 86% SoH and one that other than having a 36% SoH is fine. I'll make one good out of two that I can drive for a year or two before I drop a bunch more money on a newer one.

Thanks for your patience I can be a bit hard headed when I get an idea in my head... lol

I may be selling a Brusa with its mounting plate and the LeafDD controller. My 2011 was involved in a collision a couple of days ago and will probably be totaled.

I will post information after disposal of the car is decided.