pcar916

Hi Folks,
Question: Do any of you know how to use the Durametric's coding option to change back and forth between lead-acid (PB-acid) and Lithium-ion (L-ion) battery types? I don't know how low-level the coding is and want to do some research/RTFM before attempting it... figured someone here might have done this before I call Durametric who might be reluctant to tell a customer how to change ECU codes.

Background: My car had a L-ion battery in it when I bought it and still does. Several random dash-menu error messages turn up from time to time such as "Steering Support restricted, adaptive driving allowed". Since one of you will ask, there is no change in steering effort when this error message appears and it goes away when the car is turned off.

1. The Porsche dealer tech suggested that a L-ion setting in the CAN-ECU might not have been applied when the battery was installed which was done to save weight. I think this battery weighs ~11lbs. The tech was correct. It was still set to the original PB-acid battery.

2. L-ion batteries are an option on some Porsche GT cars. It turns out that in order to properly set up a GT4 to use a Lithium-ion battery a PIWIS has to be used to change the Siemens CAN-ECU from that of the factory PB-acid setting to get the proper charging profile. The New Orleans Porsche dealer tech told me that the ECU can be set to a number of different Ah batteries (PB-acid )... I don't know whether or not there are more than one Lithium-ion settings... forgot to ask. All of the ECU settings are for OE Porsche batteries. The tech corrected the entry.
Note: Strangely enough the engine immediately ran smoother and the "Steering Support..." message didn't reappear during my trip and for several weeks. But it has returned several times since then.

3. The nearest dealer is in Memphis ~2.5 hours away but I have Durametric-Pro software and cables. I want to try out another PB-acid battery to see if that eliminates the problem, and I've only used my Durametric to look at ODBII codes now and then and clear some of them. I really don't want to travel to and from the dealer to experiment with this.

Durametric experts???????

Note: This specific query is to find Durametric coding expertise. I'll transmit a full postmortem of how this was solved when this is all done. The manufacturers are supporting me fully in the diagnosis and I won't mention them until this is finished.

Thanks in advance,
Ron

Snowy999

Am very interested in this, I tried an Li battery as a test and got the same messages (no impact on driving) plus cooling fans running but did not re-code.

Antigravity

Well this is a timely thread....

We too have now had 3 GT4s have the same issues and one of those was in England. So this is making me a bit crazy because some other cars have not had any issues. And all the 911 do not have this issue at all.

So on the UK Car, the owner said that the fans went on all the time.... I had no answer for that. He also had a warning flag about voltage. Then I have had 2 in the USA with flags, that would go away some of the time but come on when the car started.

So I told the Users we would try to do the research on this and see what is up... because it's really interesting that we do not have this issues with ANY other cars in the Porsche line up... nor in the other sports cars.... its a GT4 issue only... yet some have not had the issue.

So in the 911s we have not had a similar issue, nor does anyone have to set the Battery in PIWIS to the Lithium setting. It just drops in and works.....and we are talking all the 911s, Turbos, GT3/2s and the other variants do not have this issue.

So if anyone local to the Los Angeles area is interested in testing with us (Antigravity Batteries on a GT4 to resolve this we would be willing to give you a very large discount on the battery to assist us with testing and getting some data on what could be occuring with these Cars...

Its maybe just that the Battery needs the Lithium Coding on it, and to my knowledge none of the GT4 guys have done that with their car that put our battery in.

pcar916

Thanks for the reply Antigravity,
Of those you're seeing issues with,
1. Is there a difference in the Ah spec on those batteries you have in the field?
2. Is there a difference in the usage. i.e. DD vs track-only.
3. Are each using battery-tenders i.e. CTEC LI-ion specific chargers/maintainers?

FYI: my fans are going full blast as well... hadn't noticed before I parked the car this afternoon.

Thanks,
Ron

Antigravity

I don't have a deep field of experience with all the GT4 so for except these 3 cars... it appears they are just reacting to a Voltage issue that the lithium has. Lithium sits at 13.2v when resting as compared to 12.6v with Lead acid. This should not be of any significance because during the cars operation being the voltage will be going up and down a bit all the time. But for some reason when first turning on the car on, they have reported flags. But some reported the flags go off after driving the car just a little ways, but then come on again the next morning. So that is the only thing I could think it was, just a very sensitive system in the GT4. Because the fact is even a Lead/Acid battery, after you shut off the car, will slowly go back down to its resting voltage of 12.6v after having been at about 14.6v during regular driving.

So the battery in the GT4 passes through the 13.2v range that the Lithium sits at, so why would it then react oddly with the flags is my/ our question. So its just very confusing to me at this point. I have to talk a bit more to some guys and see exactly what is happening.

As I said the 911s have not had this issue so I didn't want GT4 guys to have to be chasing after something that I do not have an answer on since we had not seen it before this period of time .

So I'll try to work on this asap... get some local people and try to get a PIWIS change and see if it helps.

Also the Amp Hours won't come into play at all. The car only see the VOLTAGE at the battery and will not know the difference in Amp Hours because and all our Batteries, regardless of Amp Hours, will be sitting at 13.2v.... the car wont' know if its 24Ah or 60Ah.... it will just see its fully charged.

The Chargers also won't effect it because they just maintain a battery and take it up to 13.8v.... then when you take the battery off the charger it will settle back down to 13.2v which is Lithiums resting voltage.

Last from what I recall it has been the average Daily Driver customer.... not tracked cars....but again I was just thinking it was some odd anomaly with just their car since we have not seen a call back like this from any other Porsches.... but now that we have had 3-4 of them and they are all GT4s... I see a pattern so we have to see what it up..

Snowy999

Scitt, I hope this gets solced as yoir product, insight you give into Rennlist and customer service is first rate. I very much hope yo have your product in my car soon !

Snowy

ajw45

+1 Was thinking about swapping batteries over the winter now that I have a new charger friendly garage

pcar916

Thanks for the update Antigravity, we appreciate the support.
Just 30 minutes ago while driving on the road at a constant 70mph I got a CEL. The way this presented was a yellow window with the message
"Engine control fault
Consult a workshop
Driving permitted"

This CEL has happened now roughly four times although the other three were on the track at high rpm's. It's usually accompanied by a long list of codes. Once cleared, another CEL hasn't happened in about a month until today.

This message will stay on until cleared with my Durametric or Cobb devices as will the next message referred to earlier in the thread "Steering Support restricted..."
which came on again after I stopped the car to read codes and restarted the car. Again, once this code appeared the cooling fans went on full blast and my inside ventilator fan bars disappeared so there was no inside ventilation. Once restarted the cooling fans were quiet and the inside fan was back.

Note: I don't think the inside fan problem is related to the others discussed in this thread... just not sure. I also know there is a Porsche service bulletin about fans that stop on their own due to corrosion or debris on the armature. The solution is to spin them by hand (if they're totally frozen) until they start turning and then run them on HIGH for at least 5 minutes. which I did last month on the dealership's directions. Mine would start up again. So I simply did what they would do as I rode home on a trip.

I now have an Antigravity Battery Tracker attached to this LI-ion battery. It tells me that the normal resting voltage is 13.2, which it reaches only a few minutes after charging has stopped. It also reports that the charging level is steady at 14.7-9 volts.

No revelations here, just more data.

Ron

A432

As a data point, no issues with 987's.

Antigravity

I think and hope the battery track can give us some details into this. It is super cool to be able to see the exact voltage on a graphical display for the entire day. So we should see if there is some anomaly that triggers anything.

What I can tell you is any rear-wheel steering fault or power steering fault is voltage related. This happens about 1 in every 30 times I have changed the battery in my Car (2016 GT3RS). WHat happens is the system (from my perspective) sees the voltage went to zero when I swapped the battery....then after putting in the new battery, I see the flags.... then I start or drive the car and they go away, or I cycle the key and they go away because they now see voltage from the new battery I put in the GT3. But the kicker is that it only does this RARELY and I have change the battery out in my Car about 100 times. No boloney, I've put all our batteries in that car doing all sorts of garage and starting tests multiple times over the last year and a half, but I rarely get the flags, and it only on a change out of the battery. But the few GT4 guys said they come back each morning.... So lets see what you see on the track and you use of the GT4 and see what the tracker shows. I'm hoping its something easy. As I said we will put out a formal request for a local GT4 guy to work with closely over the next week or so.

Antigravity

Can I ask you if you have a 987 and are confirming you had no issues, or if you are asking me if there are any issues with the 987s?

I cannot verify if there are many Boxsters that use our battery unfortunately. I talk to quite a few people here and by email and calling our offices, but the fact is the main 85% of our sales on the websites are from people we never talk to... and don't know the car they are going into. But I have not heard anything from the Boxster guys, and I think we should have. But a good question I should post up there.

But damn I should put a comment section when a customer makes an order asking what Car they are using the battery in. I'll ask our webmaster about that. But overall I have not heard from any Boxster guys and I know there must be some.

lovetoturn

Scott

Could it have anything to do with running in sport (14+ volts) vs normal (only about 12.8-13 volts). Maybe everybody runs in the higher voltage mode all the time to see if that helps anything. I have a 981S so it may not be quite the same on GT4s. It seems like these fault codes would be related to a transient low-voltage, and if the alternator is always running at a higher voltage, there may be less likelihood of the that happening. Food for thought???

Jeff

A432

My experience with street driving and tracking my 987 Cayman R with a lithium.
Even though it's not an AG (custom aircraft one), it still has similar voltages and the car handles it fine.
Would have probably gone with AG when I needed one, but had to fab something up 5 years ago.
After having AGM's die on me in extreme temperatures at the track (20F-110F),
I can say the extra cost was worth it to have the extra starting power with the light weight.
The voltage shut off feature has also saved me a couple times because simply reintroducing voltage opens the circuit and you're good to go.
To the OP, I've been through the Durametric Pro quite a bit and don't believe it can recode your battery type.

G-forceGT4

I hadn't had any issue with fault codes until recently after having the transmission replaced under Porsche campaign for some of the GT4's. The car has been running & driving just fine. Then the car displayed "ESM & TC failure - adapted driving permitted". I decided to clear the error code, but before I did thought to just get the specific error. The code I found on a diagnostic scan was C12089 or steering control module error. So I went ahead & cleared the thing, then sure enough a little while later another fault code appeared, this time it was the "Steering support restricted - adapted driving permitted. The car seems fine & I'll just wait for the code to disappear, & if not will manually clear it.
I'm not sure if it has anything to do with my AG lithium ion battery. The other strange thing the car does it that when you place the car on high beams during night driving, it can't be flipped back to regular low beam without turning off the lights completely & restarting in low beams. I had the car into the dealership for a warranty claim on that, however the techs couldn't fix the problem. They even went as far as installing another module.

I'm going to search in the scanner menus on an option to change over to lithium ion, which I hadn't done previously ??

ninelvnfevr

I installed a new Antigravity Lithium Battery H7 94R 40amp in my 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder in May 2019.

After five months I can say no issues of any kind.