Battery choices

[Frodo]

Quote:

"Optima all the way." Posted by ekam.

Question: Did you have to pick up one of the mounting plates to install? The one in the mike.focke battery discussion site was through an outfit called Yellow Dog Motorsports. It's aluminum and runs $50. I believe I read somewhere that there's a hard plastic one for cheaper, but I haven't been able to locate it yet.



Quote:

"The 15 lb Braille works fine both starting the car and driving the outboard amps. The coldest starts I have had have been in the low 20's and it pops right over. I would think if you got their 17 lb battery, which they rate for winter use, you would do fine and save a few lbs. If you are interested in saving weight for your car, it is one of the very cheapest ways to go."

Posted by edevlin.

Question: Sounds tempting, Ed, but with the shorter warranty, do you think you'll be replacing yours every 2-3 years or so? Was installation simple, requiring any adapter? Where'd you get yours?

[edevlin]

"Question: Sounds tempting, Ed, but with the shorter warranty, do you think you'll be replacing yours every 2-3 years or so? Was installation simple, requiring any adapter? Where'd you get yours?"

I got mine directly from Braille. I have only had the car for 2.5 years and have not had to worry about replacement yet. I got mine a couple of years ago and the mounting options were not what they are now. There a number of good inexpensive mounting solutions at the Braille website.

Mine was a bother to mount back when, because those mounting options were not available. I am using parts from a Porsche Turbo in my Boxster, that is the exhaust bracket from a Turbo was modded to hold my battery in place (see photo).

Ed

[threpwood]

I bought the same brand but a little upgrade from the stock MOLL.
MOLL M3PLUS 830-85.

Replacing battery in boxster was such as pain especially when I have all the amps in the front trunk, not to mention lack of muscle to lift the battery from the side! I ended up placing the bulk of soft car cover on the top the amps and slowly climbed over with the heavy battery on both hands.

[stateofidleness]

put an AutoZone Duralast in mine this evening.
seemed lighter than OEM one and had no troubles with install.

cost me 89$

[Jaxonalden]

The small batteries are nice if your racing and looking for quicker times. But is the trade off worth it? Can you quantify the benefits? Our cars didn't come the size battery it has for no reason.

Think of your battery as a bucket of water and the alternator as a small facet. Now all of electrical components all take some "water" out of that bucket and the facet tries to keep it full. I don't know about your car but I have heated seats, Bose amp, electric windows/mirrors and seats, deployable spoiler, all the electronic hardware (ECU, ABS, PSM, fuel pump) and the convertible top. I'm sure I missed a few things but thats allot of drain on a battery. It's all about electrical capacity. Don't forget your putting a strain on the alternator trying to keep up...if you have a small battery.

I feel if you want to save some weight in your Boxster, go on a diet. Don't sacrifice you car.

[threpwood]

Originally Posted by Jaxonalden

The small batteries are nice if your racing and looking for quicker times. But is the trade off worth it? Can you quantify the benefits? Our cars didn't come the size battery it has for no reason.

Think of your battery as a bucket of water and the alternator as a small facet. Now all of electrical components all take some "water" out of that bucket and the facet tries to keep it full. I don't know about your car but I have heated seats, Bose amp, electric windows/mirrors and seats, deployable spoiler, all the electronic hardware (ECU, ABS, PSM, fuel pump) and the convertible top. I'm sure I missed a few things but thats allot of drain on a battery. It's all about electrical capacity. Don't forget your putting a strain on the alternator trying to keep up...if you have a small battery.

I feel if you want to save some weight in your Boxster, go on a diet. Don't sacrifice you car.

No need to go on diet...I bought midtronics PBT-300 to test the battery just to avoid having to go through a diet. That way you'll know for sure how much electricity that your system eats and how much power that the battery has.

Porsche Tequipment charger also seem to do its job everytime I leave the car in the garage for more than 3 days. It gives me a peace of mind and I don't think I can live without it!

[vath2001]

Amazing! People want to install a light weight battery, then they install 200 pounds of stereo upgrades: amps, speakers, head units. Probably drive with the golf clubs in the trunk too.

Hey, go ultra light weight and Sears will sell you a lawn mower battery. It will start the car, but will be fried in 6 months... but you'll save weight.

[JackG]

Originally Posted by Jaxonalden

Think of your battery as a bucket of water and the alternator as a small facet. Now all of electrical components all take some "water" out of that bucket and the facet tries to keep it full. I don't know about your car but I have heated seats, Bose amp, electric windows/mirrors and seats, deployable spoiler, all the electronic hardware (ECU, ABS, PSM, fuel pump) and the convertible top. I'm sure I missed a few things but thats allot of drain on a battery. It's all about electrical capacity. Don't forget your putting a strain on the alternator trying to keep up...if you have a small battery.

A small correction... the battery is used to start the car. Once running, the alternator supplies *all* the current to run the car, and it also recharges the battery. The battery is simply a storage device used for starting and for supplying power when the alternator isn't spooled up.

Having a smaller battery will not put a bigger strain on the alternator. After all, it still takes the same amount of energy to start the car, so the alternator has to replace the same amount of energy back in the battery after the start. And it's already sized to handle all those electrical items you listed.

If you add big amps for your stereo, and you run them at loud, thumping levels all the time, you may exceed the alternator's output capability. The fix there is to upgrade the alternator. A bigger battery is a patch at best. If you're exceeding the alternator's output capability on a nearly constant basis, the battery will eventually be drained, but that's an extreme case.

[edevlin]

"Amazing! People want to install a light weight battery, then they install 200 pounds of stereo upgrades: amps, speakers, head units. Probably drive with the golf clubs in the trunk too."


To each his own. I like my stereo and a light car. My outboard amps, subwoofer, head unit and lightweight battery weigh less than the factory battery. That way I save a few lbs and still have the audio rig I want.

Saving weight does make our cars quicker and more responsive, but how much weight is necessary to lose, and what are each of us willing to go through to save it? I dont know, seems like I can notice 40-50 lbs weight savings on how the car handles, and I can easily feel 100 lbs. Try putting a 50 lb bag of dogfood in the passengers seat a see if you can notice a difference in performance.

If someone is autocrossing and has an older car, to put a lightweight battery in and if they lose their spare tire, thats about 50 lbs savings that most could feel. Is it worth the bother and expense, depends on the owner. Owning these cars is a hobby/passion for many of us, and messing around with them is part of the game.

Is it cost effective to try to increase performance by losing weight? Mostly it is not, a battery is probably the cheapest way to lose a fair amount of weight. Most of the ways available to save weight are quite expensive and would not make sense to many:

Lose spare-if you have one 0K 25 lbs

Light weight flywheel 1K l5 lbs

Full exhaust system 4K 25 lbs

Lightweight seats 2.5K 48 lbs

Lightweight battery <0.2k 20+ lbs


Looks like you could pretty much put a larger engine in the car for the cost of all of those mods. But hey, if thats what floats your boat, so be it.....


Ed

[Jaxonalden]

Originally Posted by JackG

A small correction... the battery is used to start the car. Once running, the alternator supplies *all* the current to run the car, and it also recharges the battery. The battery is simply a storage device used for starting and for supplying power when the alternator isn't spooled up.

Having a smaller battery will not put a bigger strain on the alternator. After all, it still takes the same amount of energy to start the car, so the alternator has to replace the same amount of energy back in the battery after the start. And it's already sized to handle all those electrical items you listed.

If you add big amps for your stereo, and you run them at loud, thumping levels all the time, you may exceed the alternator's output capability. The fix there is to upgrade the alternator. A bigger battery is a patch at best. If you're exceeding the alternator's output capability on a nearly constant basis, the battery will eventually be drained, but that's an extreme case.

Jack,

I totally disagree with everything you wrote and stand behind my thread. The car does not run off of the alternator, it pulls power from the battery. The battery is a constant, large capacity source of ~12 volts of electricity. The alternator does nothing more than recharge the battery at 13.5-14.5v. Anything less than 13.5v and the battery will not recharge ("Alt" idiot light). The alternator produces A/C power thats converted to D/C through diodes and the voltage regulator does just that, it regulates the flow of current to the battery. Flow starts when battery volts fall below 13.5v and shuts it off at 14.5v.

So as I said;

"It's all about electrical capacity. Don't forget your putting a strain on the alternator trying to keep up...if you have a small battery." That's because the alternator is not meant to constantly supply power and will eventually heat up (which is the limiting factor) and fail.