Warm air intake

[oil pan 4]

Remember, flooded leas acid starting batteries should not be discharged more than 20%.
They are designed to make maximum amps for a short time.
Using more than 20% of the batteries capacity could damage it, shortening it's life.

[Magician]

yep... I read up on the lead acid batteries. If I roll start and avoid using the starter, I don't hardly use any of the capacity... The starter is an energy monster! Even having my LED headlights and LED running lights with the car running doesn't use all that much on a 10-20 minute drive. However, I figure it's best to leave my alternator switched on during any night driving or possibly on days that have very little sunlight.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by Magician

yep... I read up on the lead acid batteries. If I roll start and avoid using the starter, I don't hardly use any of the capacity... The starter is an energy monster! Even having my LED headlights and LED running lights with the car running doesn't use all that much on a 10-20 minute drive. However, I figure it's best to leave my alternator switched on during any night driving or possibly on days that have very little sunlight.

Do the maths.

Worst case the starter draws 80A (peak- it drops rapidly once the engine is spinning). A small car battery has about 80Ah of capacity.

It takes 1 second to start a warm engine, occasionally longer, occasionally shorter.

Let's say you want to use only 20% of the batteries capacity, that's 16Ah.

80/3600=0.023

So it takes 0.023Ah to start your engine, 16Ah is enough for 700 starts!

In the real world I was able to start a Suzuki four times on a 90mah supercap, which would tend to confim my maths.

[Magician]

If you've ever tried to start a car that doesn't want to run... the battery certainly won't last for any where near that many starts... I understand they usually start up fairly quickly, but that isn't a realistic number of starts on a fully charged battery. I am willing to bet even a brand new battery wouldn't do 250 starts without the alternator charging the battery at least a little bit.

BTW, on the sunny days... my solar panel is topping off my battery fairly easily as long as I don't use the starter but a few times in a day.

[Jack-Lee]

Peukert effect!

I could start my engine with my little 8Ah LiFePO4 about 40-50 times (need 160A to do that for about a second). After that, the internal resistence is too high to start.

[Magician]

My MPGuino was off by about 5%, but I adjusted the Microsec/gallon setting by 5% and it seems to have self corrected my current tank. I read up on how to do this and finally tried it. Worked like a charm. Now my MPG's should be almost exactly matched to my MPGuino... over 99% accurate.

[ECO-AKJ]

Great!!

[Magician]

Well... it seems the controller for my solar panel has some parasitic tendencies... I put a switch on it to turn it off before sundown... manually of course. Seems to have worked like a charm.

[ThermionicScott]

*bump*

Now that it's getting seriously warm here in the midwest, I'm curious how your car is doing with all that insulation.

[Magician]

I haven't had to remove it, so even with 98 degree temps, it's been doing great. Also, my grill block with the small door I can open and close works great. Looking forward to getting over 60 mpg next tank. I think I may hit 62+ mpg. I need to do some aero mods...