One or two batteries for Stock Elim.

[Danny Ashley]

Kenny:
I'm leaving tomorrow for Charlotte,N.C. to pick up a 1976 Firebird purchased off E-Bay. Won't be out this season because I'm starting with a street car. I know it's a lot cheaper to buy a completed car but I enjoy building them . This may be my last racecar so I really want to do it right. Thanks for asking. I am leaning towards the 16 volt system right now. One of my Super Stock customers, who is really fast, said he would never go back to a 12 volt system and he only runs one 16 volt battery and no alternator. But I'm open to suggestions. Nothing is set in stone at this stage of the game except the color on the car which doesn't need re-painting. Danny

[Dick Butler]

It is my understanding that the Voltage of the battery(12 VS 16) wasnt the real issue it was the Amperage available to run it all. I had been told the Voltage of a 12 volt battery drops below the best voltage to run strong ignition systems if you power a water pump, fuel pump and Fan from the battery.
Alternator takes power to turn.
Two 16 volts in series will run it all with strength to Start, Run and cool without dropping below the voltage to power the ignition and fire the wide gap plugs.
If you Must run the Alternator use the 2 12volts as if they are well charged it will reduce the power draw on the alternator and therefore the HP loss turning it.

Run Parallel not series

[FED 387]

if you run a MSD box and the voltage gets below 10.5 volts YOU MIGHT GET high speed misses---- the more the battery is charged the better off you are--Comp 387

[Alan Warman]

What about the black boxes that keep the voltage at a constant 16V even if the battery
voltage drops below 10V. We have one in our bracket car and it seems to work good, I can't remember who made it though. But here is one like on this web site.

techwest@techwestracing.com,

[magnumv8]

I just want to clarifly some info in your discussion....there is two posts for putting two batteries in series...do not do this as it will DOUBLE your total battery output that the vehicle "sees"...series is when you wire two batteries positive to negative with each other...in this scenario 2-12 volt batteries become one 24 volt battery, 2-16 volt becomes one 32 volt battery etc.....I am sure it was meant to wire them in PARALLEL, which is positive to positve, negative to negative, in this manner your voltage remains either 12 volt or 16 volt but it also gives you the advantage that you now have the current available to start and run high compression and high powered ignition system with no problems because you get the current as a total of BOTH batteries at once...also in stock if they decide to test your "dual" batteries, they both better be able to start the car seperately or they will be considered illegal ballast.....

D L RAMBO

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

Originally Posted by magnumv8

also in stock if they decide to test your "dual" batteries, they both better be able to start the car seperately or they will be considered illegal ballast.....

D L RAMBO

On that, if the car came with a trunk mounted battery I have to from what I understand run that in the "Stock Location" ....where can I put the other one ? (yes I know it says in the trunk) is there any limit to where in the trunk I can mount it without them (tech) twitching.

Any problem say with mouting it right over my axle line offset for the best r/l weight dist ?

[GTX JOHN]

Over the Axle is as good as any in my opinion.... left or right depends on what your 4 wheel scales tell you... See you in Feb. PS Both Bats supposed to be same type and weight

[magnumv8]

drooze.....just remember that the secondary battery still has to be able to START the car as well as the primary battery (NHRA regs)....and as a side note... I personally won't use "deep cycle" marine type batteries anymore because they do not like to provide FULL cranking power on a start up...they are designed to allow as much power as possible while going to a full discharge of voltage.....I burned up 2 optima yellow tops before I found this out and now will avoid the deep cycle batteries for that reason....

D L Rambo....

[Chris "drooze" Wertman]

Check....

Im sure the other would start the car even after 5 or 10 passes, since its only going to be running fans, water pump and some electronics....IF I need it.

Good to know on the deep cycles, I bought it for that reason, not the cranking amps, but if I end up with issues Ill know where to look.

Thanks for the note.

But very good to know....I was going to get one of those 400 cell lithium jobs till I saw the price ....Ive got some other ideas on that front later, heck a battery is easy enough to swap out....and cheap....Im always about 6 batteries short around here anyway the one thats in there was priamarily for testing (hence the deep cycle, wiring, load testing etc)....well see how it does from Dyno-Track.

A change may be in order though.

Thanks again

Cheers

Chris

Originally Posted by magnumv8

drooze.....just remember that the secondary battery still has to be able to START the car as well as the primary battery (NHRA regs)....and as a side note... I personally won't use "deep cycle" marine type batteries anymore because they do not like to provide FULL cranking power on a start up...they are designed to allow as much power as possible while going to a full discharge of voltage.....I burned up 2 optima yellow tops before I found this out and now will avoid the deep cycle batteries for that reason....

D L Rambo....