Hello everyone. I've registered my account here firstly and foremostly to reply to this matter.
Having found out Laserhacker's experiment back in 2014, I've tried to replicate it myself. The foremost purpose was
weight balance in the car - as the battery, originally 60Ah and over 15kg / 33lbs, is at the extreme front end, outside the wheelbase, and any sizable weight reduction here decreases the polar moment on inertia and therefore the understeering.
Parts used:
6 x 700F Nippon DLCAP supercapacitors
6 x CSDWell balacing boards in parallel to each supercap
1 x 10Ah AGM motorcycle battery for current reserve
16 sq mm (5 AWG) welding cable connections
Brass / copper bolts and fittings for better conductivity
Brass battery posts
Everything fitted inside a wooden box I've made myself to fit on the original clamps inside plastic battery box.
Starter motor is rated to 1.1kW, as as any brushed single-speed electric motor are only about 60% efficient, means it needs to draw over 1800 watts to turn the engine, which translate into a bit over 140 A at 12.6 volts.
Assembled package is about 5kgs in weight. This equals removal of 10kgs (22lbs) from the extreme front end of the car. (Adding some small, non-essential parts already moved to rear, front/rear weight distribution changed by more than 36kg, or from 59:41 to roughly 56:44, which helps to limit understeer). The system fits invisibly inside of the car's battery box.
Results: starts much quicker at 0°C compared to lead-acid battery alone, voltage with engine running is stable at 14.2 volts engine hot, 14.4 volts engine warm, 14.6 volts engine cold, idle a bit smoother. Rpms climb a little bit faster, as the alternator hardly does any effort after the first few seconds needed to recharge the capacitors.
I'm happy my little experiment worked and a HAPPY NEW YEAR for everyone
