[quote=gzz]I like the idea of replacing my car’s heavy lead acid battery with a light and modern lithium one.
Which model would you get? Probably not economic for mainstream use yet.[/quote]
It depends on how much CCA you need. This car can get by with something around 300 CCA give or take, so it’s about $150 for a decent Shorai battery. Traditional Lead-Acid battery was around $110, unless I get the Walmart special which would have been around 80. Costco doesn’t stock the battery otherwise that would have been the best option.
The biggest issue with the LiFEPO4 battery is you absolutely need to make sure you never run the battery down to completely dead. If you do, that becomes a paperweight pretty quickly. The bigger concern is in modern cars, there’s so much electronics that the car is drawing some current even when it’s off. So personally, I would only feel comfortable putting this battery in with a kill switch that cuts off the rest of the car’s electronic to the battery. I have this in my car, and take the cutoff switch key with me. I don’t have much electronics left in the car.
Also, thing about LiFEPO4 batteries is you need to get a special trickle charger for it. You can’t use the one for traditional Lead-Acid batteries.
Speaking of battery conditioners…I keep a battery conditioner on all the cars I’m not driving all the time. That does a pretty good job keep the battery 7-8 years.
I have this 4 bank unit (when it was much cheaper and sold directly by AAA)
I also have two single units for the other two cars I care slightly more about…The CTek condition is good and it’s small enough to take with you.
For the lipo4 battery, the CTEK version you want is:
LiFeP04 batteries don’t require overnight charging. They charge pretty quick, usually within 1-2 hours. And disconnected from any/all load, they hold their charge very well for a long time.
You don’t really need a LiFEPO4 battery unless you really need to save the weight. For a street car, it’s unnecessary, I don’t have it any of my other cars. If you run heavy electronics in a car, don’t do it. For example, if you have a super-duper sound system…. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the extra weight put back into the car with a rollbar and a blower for the motor. Blowers are heavy too. Also not a good financial decision, because it ended up costing more than the car. But they certainly are fun… (installing them, not so fun…)
(Pay no attention to the clear zipties holding the throttle cable assembly from moving and jamming at full throttle. That was only temporary when a bolt came off during a race. It was either zipties or duct tape…. Hey, people laughed, but I was able to finish the day. And besides, its permenantly fixed now…. Couldn’t find a replacement bolt, but now I use black colored zip ties that are thicker… :()
