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This is a very cool product, but it feels a bit like cutting weight at the wrong section of the car.
On the contrary, it sits up high in the car. The lighter battery improves polar moment that will moderately affect body roll, braking and other things.
On the contrary, it sits up high in the car. The lighter battery improves polar moment that will moderately affect body roll, braking and other things.
Exactly right. Sure, it would be great if it was in the back, but it's still just below the windshield so it's very high up for a 50 pound weight, and it's behind the front wheels so it's still technically in the center of the car's weight distribution area, too.
It's one of the most efficient and impressive ways to remove 50lbs! And only after something like a carbon roof panel or GT glass it's the best place to do it being fairly central and high.
It's one of the most efficient and impressive ways to remove 50lbs! And only after something like a carbon roof panel or GT glass it's the best place to do it being fairly central and high.
It's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than carbon fiber roof panel (which most Turbos except mine have a sunroof anyway) or GT lightweight glass.
OK, one week sitting all by itself, and the car fired up perfectly, as if it had 200 amps on tap. I'm not going to push further than that for now, but I do want to find some parameters that the car can easily handle. Still feeling great about this battery swap!
OK, one week sitting all by itself, and the car fired up perfectly, as if it had 200 amps on tap. I'm not going to push further than that for now, but I do want to find some parameters that the car can easily handle. Still feeling great about this battery swap!
Hey Randy, not sure how much you are driving your car.... but I will suggest this to do some voltage monitoring on your battery so you can really get the best understanding of your particular parasitic draw for your car combined with your particular battery model. This way in your head you will always have a good baseline of how long your battery will last in your vehicle.
Here is what we do when testing in different vehicles.... When the car charges a lithium battery it charges it (depending on brand or model) from roughly 14.4v to 14.8v.... But that is ONLY after charging.... after charging/driving the Lithium Batteries' voltage will then settle and go to it normal RESTING voltage of 13.2v-13.4v.... that is where it will generally sit for around a year if nothing is drawing energy from it. So after you drive your car... take the voltage after getting home from the drive. The battery will be sitting at its charged voltage probably in the high 13sv to 14.8 if you checked it immediatly after getting out of the car. It will then start to settle over the course of a few hours to overnight into is RESTING voltage of the 13.2v..... some variation on these numbers it totally normal. At this point it will sit in that range for a good couple weeks if there is no significant draw... but if you can keep checking that voltage every 4 days and when you see it start to hit 13v then start checking the voltage ever 2 days or one day.... and follow it down to about 12.5v. So 12.5v would be a good conservative number to never let it get below on this type of testing... of course it can go lower but no need since you're just trying to get a solid conservative number that will give you comfort on how long you can realistically let your car sit and not worry about the battery. So if it took you one month, two months or 5 months to reach that 12.5v at least you would have that base line of knowing it lasted you X number of days before it got to 12.5v and you could feel safe leaving it alone for that amount of time.
Keep in mind 12.5 is pretty high... it can go as low as roughly 10.5v.... but a car won't start usually at 11.5v. I just want you to stay in the upper ranges to know that you have some headroom and a little extra time beyond 12.5v.
By the way I was able to FINALLY talk to a Porsche Tech who knew this stuff.... and I got some info on what the PIWIS system does and why they recommend to change it to a Lithium Setting in PIWIS. I'll try to post on that later tonight as time permits.
Update: Measured the battery charge last Wednesday at 13.30 volts. Measured today, a week later, at 13.27 volts. That's very impressive, and has greatly put my mind at ease about the daily driver part of this new battery technology. I have a BMW M4 GTS that came with an OEM lithium battery, and it's been 2-3 weeks at a time without starting and I've yet to have any issue with it either. (The BMW gave me the confidence to try this on the Porsche.)
Just did my first track weekend of the year at VIR. (So nice to get back out on track after a 4 month break!)
The battery at the end of the first day was at 13.3v, which is perfect. The next morning, 30F degrees outside, the car immediately fired right up, no issues. Checked the battery every afternoon at the same 13.3v, and every morning at 30F degrees the car fired up with the same immediacy as when in the warm garage. As far as the driving experience is concerned...call me crazy...but the car DID feel noticeably better. One example, I was comfortable taking VIR turn 5a at 3-4mph faster before the run up to the climbing esses, and the brake zone at the end of the back straight was absolutely more compressed and better controlled. I will have to check the data, but I predict the top MPH on the back straight will be higher, because I saw the "comfort tire pressure" warning light earlier than in the past, meaning I was hitting 165mph sooner than in the past. If it's in my head or actual, the lighter weight battery is a VICTORY! I highly recommend this swap.
OK, car sat in the garage from March 17 to March 28, 11 days, and voltage has fallen only to 13.28! I think the programming that Porsche did puts the car into a deeper sleep, because it's just not draining at all when sitting for a while. I'm really impressed!!
Question - So if you were to put a Cobb tune on the car would you need to swap out the battery to the old one so you could run a high amp charger on the battery as the tune was being loaded? If so, any problems switching back and forth? I read in other posts newer cars need to be coded for a lithium battery.
Question - So if you were to put a Cobb tune on the car would you need to swap out the battery to the old one so you could run a high amp charger on the battery as the tune was being loaded? If so, any problems switching back and forth? I read in other posts newer cars need to be coded for a lithium battery.
You would just put the Braille charger on the battery while the Cobb tuning process is ongoing, but it does need to go to the dealer to have the car coded for a lithium battery. Also, swapping back and forth is another easy way to go. Sam, do you agree?
Hi gents… Let me add I’ve got a couple big project cars that I’ve had this battery actually the larger version in them for a few years now. Car would sit multiple runs at the track no charging the battery is an absolute beast! I’ve never made any changes for the lithium. I think it’s a charging thing but these batteries are pretty solid about it. One of my dealer friends who supports us is a stickler him he didn’t think it was a big deal either. From 2014 to 2018 no problems I’m very confident. As for the loading of programs you should be fine using the provided charger. Feel free to reach out for any kind of support or if I can help any of you guys get any of these goodies. I will apologize now if there are any crazy Sambo Siri grammar errors in here ha ha it’s been busy around here!
I forgot to write this earlier... but when I purchased the RS I was able to talk to their lead "Gold Certified" Porsche Tech for a while. In fact as part of the sale I requested that I have six months access to ask the Porsche tech questions about electrical system, charging, and any other questions because I told them that we are lithium battery manufacturer and I wanted certain information so I could better understand the parasitic draw of the car and the charging system. Anyways this dealership and their tech have been exceptionally gracious and sent me some PDF documentation which I'm not allowed to divulge, but I can relay some of the facts that I was informed about, but I have to finish reading it.... there's alot of info.
The tech informed me that since about 2005 Porsche has put a vehicle battery management system into their cars.... This Battery Management system relates to how the electronics in the car are monitored and put into what I would call sleep modes, but the Tech used the term of "lower current draws". He also stated more recently over the last five years that battery management system has become increasingly much more advanced and monitors more of the separate electronic systems within the cars and disengages them individually now and earlier rather than the older version where it would be more of a blanket sleep mode. Now it shuts down individual areas such as ignition, different areas of lighting, etc. So beyond all the tech facts, the bottom line is that the more recent cars over the last five years are having significantly lower parasitic draws than previous years and it apparently was VERY IMPORTANT issue that Porsche felt the needed to be addressed. So he (who has worked at this dealer ship for 15 years) said he believed it had to do with the continual complaints of dead batteries for many years prior to developing the management system in the car and it was most likely just because these cars are often not daily drivers.. but now the newer system has made it so they do not have nearly as many dead battery issues.
Another interesting thing I was informed about was he said on my car and some other cars that the charging of the battery does not occur on acceleration as it does on normal cars but rather on deceleration.... This does not put any drag on the motor as your accelerating that's just an interesting tidbit that he informed me about because it's counterintuitive to everything I've ever known about an alternator.
Last I can attest to the low parasitic draw because I have been working with a person in Texas... Let's call him Jeff.... who has a Cayman that he tracks and it has our ATX-30 Battery in it which he tracks.... The ATX 30 is on a MONTH in this car and it in the 13.1v range.... but the kicker is the Antigravity ATX 30 is an 18 amp hour battery! That is pretty small battery, (only weighs 5.7 lbs) for a Street Car... so that is a very good testimate to the low draw of the newer P-Cars... and it makes us very happy because that could signify someone could use a battery that weighs about 6 pounds in their daily driver P-Car and be fine....Needless to say you can use even smaller Antigravity versions for Track and Race.
When I got the RS I told the Dealership and Tech what we do, and that later I would bring the car in for a PIWIS change over to the LIHTIUM Battery.... So during that conversation and asked about the PIWIS system change and what it does. The tech pulled it up for me and showed me what they can do.... for example they can select the type of battery Lead or Lithium and then the Amp Hours for the particular battery and set that up in the Cars system. But what he told me was that Porsche doesn't even tell the Techs EXACTLY what that does but rather just goes over the basics like the system changes some setting that might assist a lower Amp Hour battery to retain a charge longer, but again he said there were no exact details in the changes that actually occur in the system. But I will say that I am running our Antigravity RS-30 in the GT3 RS and I WILL NOT be changing the PIWIS to a Lithium setting for the next 6 months so I can make sure that there is no ill effect if the change to the PIWIS is not made. I am also tracking the voltage after I bring the car in from a drive and while idling and driving (connected a voltmeter so i can track it while driving), and while the car is sitting to see if any weird voltage or charging is occuring. So far there is no indication of any anomaly what so ever in using our Lithium Battery in the CarRS and without having changed it to the LIHTIUM setting in PIWIS.
The RS in in my garage and I have been leaving the hood open, I leave the doors ajar and it was not showing any draw down of our Lithium Battery yet. I usually drive once a week though I went 2 weeks without driving recently.... voltage was still at 13.2 which is its resting voltage, so all was fine. Keep in mind this is WITH leaving the doors open and frunk open.... I did leave the key in the ignition once over night and it was still charged and sitting at resting voltage.. Also, I NEVER put the battery on a Charger.... My testing is to check REAL USE data in a testing environment that is beyond what a normal owner would see. This way if I tell you guys something... it is from data from a worst case scenario of use.
So for my conclusions, and this is still only early-on, is that I don't see any problem leaving the standard setting for Lead/Acid battery when using our Lithium Battery.
03-03-2018, 05:44 PM
