Weight savings: What are currently tried and tested affordable/Dependable Lithium power options and mount?

[neatrip]

As the title suggests, there may be other owners who have considered installing a lightweight lithium ion battery in their ITR as an alternative to their old battery.

A few years ago, I heard Deka lithiums were a good affordable option outside of Anti-Gravity and Braille.

As its been a while and there always seems to be mixed thoughts on both. I'm wondering if there has been any settling points on a real solid lithium battery option for us now.

For anyone with considerable experience of using lithium ion in your ITR, what are you thoughts and experiences on your battery (weight, Ah rating, maintenance routine, anything same or different from traditional battery)?

What kind of mount are you using? If you were to go with the same or different battery which one would it be?

Want to make sure if one does decide to spend on a lithium battery choice, its not obvious loss as some people who have had batteries fail in short unexpected time or the battery just didn't live up to their expectations as seen in the past.

Feel free to share opinions about lithium ion batteries for the ITR or anything you've read or listened outside the community especially if it pertains to affordability, reliability, and ease of maintenance with your caR.

[coolhandluke]

My experience includes:
-Braille (first one lasted ~6yrs years, second <1yr)
-Antigravity Batteries (second hand)

Antigravity has been on my radar after seeing them at a vendor stand at Monterey Historics races years ago with RBoosted717, who later purchased one for his car(s.) Note, one must purchase new trickle chargers for this battery.

My ITR battery is likey dead given the pandemic, the car hasn't moved in ~10mo. Since I already need to re-corner balance/align after the current suspension projects it will be a good time to buy.

[aklackner]

I’m running an InduraPower 120 LiFePO4 battery with out issues, I’m pretty brutal on it too. It gets fully drained and recharged from dead with my 10amp manual charger. Unfortunately for me, the company is now reworking their product line to provide shells that are drop in replacement for standard sizes.

I think most of the lithium based batteries can have high rate of issues with cells failing. From what I under stand the cells themselves are manufactured by a limited number of companies and packaged by battery vendors.

IMO Any lithium battery should have cells balanced to ensure full capacity but given they’ll be charging off the alternator while the vehicle is running are going to be pretty tolerant of standard chargers.

[Sporky82]

I don't use a lithium batter but one from a mobility chair, its small, light and starts up my ITR every single time, if sitting longer than a week I put my tender on it. I've had it for 2 years so far in two different chassis $80 cad is what I paid

[pman811]

I've been using a Deka ETX20L in my Civic for about 6 months now. It just see's mostly weekend spirited driving so I have a battery tender for it.

Been working great and I haven't had any issues so far.

[aklackner]

I’d put battery relatively far down the line, it’s an easier pick up but does add to maintenance keeping charged.

Depending on your use I’d say tried and true weight loss looks something like:
Driver weight loss
Light weight wheels
Hollow ASR rear ARB
Move to billet brake calipers 2-piece rotors
Light battery
Remove AC
Remove ABS
Convert from power steering
Lose steel bumpers for race crash bars
Carbon hood and hatch
Lose Interior (check min. requirements for your use)

From here you can get really extreme moving to smaller fuel cell, etc.

[coolhandluke]

I’d put battery relatively far down the line, it’s an easier pick up but does add to maintenance keeping charged.

Depending on your use I’d say tried and true weight loss looks something like:
Driver weight loss....

Weight reduction starts with the driver.

[Dave-ROR]

We run an Odyssey PC545 in the race car (93 hatchcrap). It's ~12lbs and seems fine.

I just ordered an AntiGrav ATX-20 from Ravi/WDLR for the FR-S track/backup race car.

I can't remove the bumper in the FR-S.. that's what supports the splitters for these cars so far. Race car has no rear bumper (purely for design - third brake light is in the rear bumper with "team lazy" cut out of the bumper). Would like to swap the front to a crash bar...

The ITR has what I'm sure is a very dead battery. It was dead when I last used the car for a track car (I think that was Jan 2020? or was it 2021.. hmm) so I'm sure it's still dead. I'm not wasting money on a battery for that shitbox though.