Crashnburn80's Tesla Model 3 Performance Longer Range Build

Tesla lift pucks

One of the oddities of a Tesla is the entire underside of the car is smooth, and mostly all battery. You cannot jack from the battery without risking damage. There are 4 jack holes to lift from next to each wheel. To jackup the car from the hole you are supposed to use a jack puck to keep the lift force right at the specified point.



Like so.


There are lots of different lift pucks on the market and many super cheap options typically made of rubber that would work fine. There isn't much room between the ground and the bottom of the car to get a puck in, plus a floor jack so I opted for these low profile units which have self extension magnets to self attach to the car to make things easier.

Puck extension magnet attached to the fridge


Where I purchased.
https://abstractocean.com/products/tesla-jack-adaptors

I'll need these to swap the brakes this weekend with the Mountain Pass Performance rotors.

 

Subbed

 

So far, the only complaint I have about the car is the driver side wheel well sometimes has a plastic vibration/fluttering noise around 60-65mph. Not something passengers might notice, but I am OCD about rattles.

First 20 seconds of this video shows the issue. I only have it on the driver side and don't have any of the other issues described in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkWF8xLLQPI&t=14s

In searching for better solutions than tape as recommended in the video, I found RPM Tesla sells secondary noise reduction liners.



Admittedly, this seemed somewhat questionable. Except the rear wheels have this kind of felt/wool noise reduction liner from the factory whereas the front liners are just hard plastic. I realized even driving in my neighborhood at low speed there is so much impact noise from organic debris deflected off the wheel wells from small twigs etc that were not noticeable in an ice vehicle. I'm going to pick these up to kill the proverbial 2 birds with one stone while using something better than tape.

Lengthy install video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LuuF00KCf0

 

Front brake upgrade. It did not quite go as planned.

Magnetic lift puck. Lift pucks are needed to safely lift the Tesla from the specified lift points, since the entire underside is battery.


New directionally cooled 2 piece mountain pass performance rotors vs stock 3 performance rotors. New rotors have more advanced directional cooling for a 30% performance gain while also being lighter weight than the basic straight vein OEM performance rotor.


OEM weight


Mountain Pass Performance weight


I was hoping for a bit more. I was told it was a 1.3lb weight savings. Regardless it is a significantly higher performing brake rotor while also removing rotational weight. Since you cannot add power to the car the most effective performance mod is to reduce weight, and rotational weight has the highest performance return.

Mounted. But...


The rotor hat makes contact with the wear indicator. Fortunately with the spring loaded calipers, the rotor would rotate and push the pad into the caliper spring allowing it to momentarily clear while the spring was compressed, allowing it to pass without damage.


First thought was to manually add clearance with a BFH.


Seemed like a reasonable solution. Except then I realized when the wear indicator makes contact with the rotating rotor, the rotation direction will push it right back into the rotor hat. Arg. Then I read the directions and noted step #5.



The pads are the stock performance pads, it didn't mention anything about having to change the stock configuration, but the squeal tab/wear indicators were installed on the outside as stock, and according to the directions they needed to be on the inside. Sigh. So I went pull the brakes again for the 3rd time now and my cheap POS Harbor Freight floor jack failed and picked fluid all over the garage floor. Quick trip down to HF to replace with the same, because few options late evening and pulled the brakes again only to find it has squeal tabs/wear indicators on both front and back pads. Franky I'm very surprised a Tesla would use squeal indicators for brakes at all, the Germans have been using electronic sensor pads for decades. On a car this advanced, I'd expect the car to tell you it needs brakes, you know... like a 1990 Mercedes, not have a metal tab gouge into your rotor creating awful noise to let you know it needs brakes. Anyway... Vehicles don't need squeal tabs on both pads. Assuming the caliper is functioning properly both the pads should wear relatively evenly. Most pads just have the tab on one pad for this reason, and it is often recommended to install the tab on the inner brake pad since it lacks visibility compared to the outer pad. So the solution is obvious.

Stock


Additional light weighting and clearance


Saw this trick on a youtube video for lifting the tensioning springs on the caliper to slide the pad out rather than removing the alignment bolts. I repeated this with a pair of screwdrivers and worked great.


While I was in there, I did the fender tape mod with some automotive foam tape I had laying around to stop the plastic fender resonance issue. Will still likely order the noice reducing liners.


How do you design a shock and driveshaft to occupy the exact same space? Never seen a design like this before.


In addition, swapped stock lugs for ultra light titanium lugs. Stock vs Titanium.


Weight savings was a little less than expected. Approximately 0.3lbs per corner based on my scale. So I thought I was getting 1.8lb reduction a corner with the lugs and brakes, turns out I got 1.3lbs. Going to do the rears tomorrow.

Sexy.


Its worth noting the rotors push the wheels out 4mm, which puts them very flush with the car, giving just a slightly more aggressive look.

 

Any plans to change to a smaller wheel and tire setup?

 

Yep. I have 21lb 18" EV01s (the most efficient EV wheel, on par with Tesla's aero wheels but lighter) and was going to run the new ultra high performance all season 25lb Goodyear ElectricGTs. But after ordering it all and driving the car for a while, I decided I really like the larger wheel look vs the 18s. So I pivoted to 19" EV01s at 26lbs and the same corresponding ElectricGT tires but at 27lbs. So I gained 7lbs over the planned setup, but it is still 3lbs lighter per corner than my current setup while being ~4% more efficient for aero than the stock performance wheels. So more modest gains, but still gains. Plus the 1.3lb savings from the brakes and lugs.

 

@crashnburn80, bit of an oddball question for you. I'm convinced that I'll get some sort non-ICE vehicle when my 2015 Tacoma eventually gives up the ghost (likely around 400k miles from now). What are your thoughts on mounting solar panels to EVs? I know that setting up a vehicle-mounted solar array isn't a complete substitute for using a designated EV charger, but it seems that solar power could be used to keep batteries topped off while parked away from home.

I'm planning on mounting a couple solar panels to a roof rack on my Tacoma, just to keep my one battery fully charged and happy. I figure, if an EV 4Runner or something similar comes out, a proper array could be installed without being too much of an eyesore. What do you think?

 

Well, 400k miles away is a long time. I'm sure there will be significant technology improvements in EV by then.

For some amusing paper napkin type math...
Lets say you got 2 high quality 230w panels. I'm not sure you could fit 2 on-top of a 4runner, but for entrainment, lets say you could. They provide 460w combined under ideal conditions. I don't think the vehicles support slow direct charging, so you'll need to convert 12v DC to AC, meaning an DC to AC inverter. A decently good inverter is 90% efficient, so your peak input into the vehicle would be 414w. To convert that to amps, 414w/120v=3.45A. The Tesla model 3 is one of the most efficient EVs, and this is important because that means you can go further with less power, which is useful when you have limited input power. The model 3 gets 4 miles/hr of charge at 12A 120v (1440w), meaning 3A/hr gets you about 1 mile or just over. So the solar array would add roughly just over 1 mile of range per hour under ideal conditions.

However, other things to note. An SUV isn't going to be as efficient, especially something square enough to mount large panels on. So if the EV efficiency is much lower, that 3.45A isn't going to carry you as far. It could likely be near half, meaning you are really gaining 0.5 miles/hr in ideal conditions. But also, if you are permanently mounting the panels on the vehicle, you are likely going to be putting them in the airstream, which will cause drag and further reduce the efficiency reducing the range beyond the benefits of the added range, so you'd may come up as a net loss, unless it was a portable system you could put inside the vehicle when not in use. Cost would be very high to get good solar to generate the power listed above with a good inverter. For perspective, to get the same roughly 12 hours worth of solar charging is 15 minutes at a level 2 charger that are common at shopping centers. Even all that said, I don't know if/how the vehicle would charge with that low of a power source. The minimum plug is for 12A on a Tesla. There is a pretty big gap in the solar power generation to EVs power use, which is why you don't usually see them being utilized.

 

Rear brakes

Since the parking brake is always set on the rear, the rear brakes must be released/disabled so that the rear brake swap can be done. You can leave the car on in neutral or enable transport mode, which will release the brakes. According to what I read, transport mode will re-enable the brakes after 20 minutes, so you need to remove the wheel and unplug the electric connector to the caliper before that time.



The connector has a tab the needs to be pulled out, then using the pulled out tab, press down on it to release the clip. (Shown with new rotors)


Otherwise it is a straight forward brake job. Words I always want to see on 2 piece floating rotors, as you only have 10 pins from these becoming 2 separate pieces.


Old rotor


New rotor


Annoyed. The weight is the same. If we put the rotor centered on the scale it would read 14.4lbs, but doing so with both still resulted in the same readings for both. These rotors offer a substantial cooling performance gain, and resolves the Tesla braking issues when used on the track but I was also looking for weight reduction gain (and not looking to track the car). To get 0.0 lbs reduction for $1000 stings, when I was told they were a 1.3lb savings (though not specifying front/rear). Note that the Performance 3 uses different Brembo performance rotors than the long range and standard 3, so those models which use a traditional cast rotor design would see a significant weight reduction.

The rotors do add +4mm track to each side, so I'd still do front and rear as a set. But for $2000 the rotors saved 2lbs (front) and added 30% cooling improvement and added slotting. The titanium lugs saved a net 1.2lbs combined on all corners. Better than stock all round in every way. But at a significant cost vs gain, I had higher expectations. The Mountain Pass Performance rotors are manufactured by Giro Disc.

Seeing the data now, I might consider Paragon instead, though I'd want to be sure they were US manufactured. Slightly less expensive, and they claim and show 0.8lb reduction front and 2.9lb savings rear, which is better than my 1.0 front and 0 rear.

Definitely looks sharp though. And no wear indicator trimming needed on the rear.


The +4mm stance adds the perfect amount without pushing the wheel out into the airstream on the performance wheels.

 

Forgot to tag @Kidwidataco for the low key hand today.

I swear I'm going to forget to remove one of those lift pucks at some point, then drive off with it and lose one.

 

Shhhhh, you can't let them know I work on Teslas

 

Sounds like you need a set of these to attach to the pucks…

 

Realistically, that isn’t a bad idea in concept. You can’t see the puck under the car but a tag hanging down would help.

 

Maybe get a 5-pack and leave one on the steering wheel or inside to remind you to check before driving off. Then keep it on the fridge or shop table when pucks are removed.

 

a little sign on the dash " Have you pulled your puck today?"

 

This is excellent, congrats @crashnburn80 on the new direction. Your 1st gen is gorgeous too. I loved my 01 DC and still miss a lot of things about it.

This was me. I didn’t care if it’s quicker — it looks too tame, seems too sterile, and nothing will ever replace the sonic symphony of a V8.
But then, with one ride in an S Plaid, my view instantly and completely changed. The violent acceleration was absolutely mind bending. GT500s and Z06s and TRXs were no longer enticing.
The paradigm has shifted.

 

Me as well.

I was at our local track lately for a HPDE with my other toy.
There were a few Porsches, 1 BMW, my lowly Nissan sports car, a Tesla, and an AMG E63 wagon (yes, a wagon at the track, and he was giv'n er)
The Porsches were remarkable in their balance.
But all I could hear and pay attention to was the beautiful sound of that AMG V8
I didn't even know the Tesla was there for most of the day, and didn't care, since it didn't exude "track"

But having driven one, man, do those cars accelerate. Incredible is a word that doesn't do it justice.

Yes, times are a changing. But I dream in V8 (and 10, and 12) cacophony, or rowing the gears in my simple Nissan.
Sad that many future generations may not experience that joy.

But now there is a different kind of experience and joy.
And thats why I follow this thread.
Carry on Crash, carry on.