In December 2019, we pulled the car
out of storage and stripped the interior and
computer to begin measuring everything
to see where a new drivetrain might fit. The
first order of business was to remove the air-
conditioning unit and frunk. Then we could
determine how much room we had for a motor
and test the space with foam engine mockups.
Instead of actually buying a crate motor
from GM, we spent many a night eBay-
ing for potential donors to keep costs down.
Eventually we landed on a 426-horsepower
6.2L Chevy LS3 motor from a wrecked 2011
Camaro SS. To everyone’s surprise, it fit like a
glove in the Model S frunk-turned-engine-bay,
and the hood latched in place on the first try.
While that V-8 hogs all the attention,
the crux of the build was actually creating a
tunnel for the transmission and driveshaft
down the middle of a car that comes with a
f lat underside. The f lat f loor is most obvious
when you notice the lack of a center console
hump in early Teslas. This was a specific
request by Musk, a subtle f lex highlighting
the lack of a certain bulge most every other
car on the road needed.
Once the 1,200-pound battery pack and
its 16 corroded modules were dropped, the
real fun began. We brought the shell to Josh-
ua’s garage to go under the knife. Technically,
Joshua was a stranger we’d only met on the
internet. But he said he had significant
welding experience and really enjoyed our
YouTube channel. Seemed legit enough that
we didn’t worry about being murdered in an
alley. On our first visit to his garage, we saw
walls covered with the body panels of Nascar
vehicles Joshua had built. We knew then that
we’d make this daydream a reality.
The Tesla body is mostly aluminum to
offset the batteries’ weight. But alumi-
num is softer than the typical carbon steel
used for auto frames, and we needed to cut
a seam down 70 percent of the length of the
car to make way for a driveshaft. This posed
the challenge of maintaining the struc-
tural integrity of an area that was also never
designed to absorb the heat and torque of an
LS motor. So to avoid creating a frame that
wanted to fold in half, Joshua added a rib
cage of bracings to the underside.
Our team fabricated and fitted motor and
transmission mounts and had a custom rear
axle built. Once the drivetrain lined up, we
saw one last major complication: How would
“WE NEEDED
TO CUT A SEAM
DOWN 70
PERCENT OF
THE LENGTH
OF THE CAR TO
MAKE WAY FOR
A DRIVESHAFT.”
March/April 2022 67