Lithium Ion battery installation into 488 GTB

Thanx !

I wonder why so much was changed in the brackets / powerlines ...

 

I've been also using a Braille battery (i48CX) in my Speciale for more than 2years now and have been very happy with it. Starts and huge weight saving compared to standart batteries are of course great but I disagree with you when you say you will never use a battery tender again. It may be OK if you are using your Ferrari frequently, but if some one intends to leave the car without its dedicated charger attached for more than 10-15days, there might be a big risk for your battery. As you might know, if the lithium battery voltage drops below a certain point, it can not be recovered with normal battery tenders/chargers and has to be sent back to the manufacturer. If the battery is discharged too much it will be damaged beyond repair, meaning it will become a very expensive junk. (this was told to me by Braille)

Since the Ferraris still have that big parasitic draw, it will discharge your lithium battery faster than standart lead acid batteries as the capacity of these li-batteries are very low (i48CX is 25Ah, i48CS is 50Ah). So while these batteries have huge advantages, one has to be extra careful with them and never leave them without its tender for long periods of storage.

 

Also, don’t these require a special lithium battery tender/charger? I think they require different equipment compared to regular batteries.

 

Yes, they do

 

I arm it only when parked unattended outside my own garage … so not on a car event, but only near hotels etc ...

 

I don't know if the alarm system can be activated/deactivated separately when locking your F-car. Even though I have a closed private garage I leave my cars doors locked, so when I do that the alarm is ON automatically. You are right that when the alarm is activated it will of course draw more amperes. But as we all know, Ferraris somehow tend to draw much more than other cars. Maybe it is the alarm system that they use or some other electronic part that I am not aware of. I can leave my Audi RS7 or my Mercedes G500 unattended, no tender attached, with their alarms on for more than a month and nothing happens. But I will never leave a Ferrari without a tender for more than 2 weeks as it will somehow discharge its battery much faster than other well known brands.

 

Ray thank you so much for doing the video. As a new Ferrari owner it was eye opening to see how complex that job is. My previous cars were Porsche and it is a way simpler process. Straightforward now that I saw the video but it would have been a lot of screwing around to do it the first time without the video. Thanks again!

I would like to echo some of the previous posters that the tender should be used. I have used these batteries in my Porsches before. They hate a constant parasitic load and will die quickly since they have less capacity than what you took out. For me it was always about the weight savings. I don’t know if that tender connection simply goes straight to the battery but you can get one of those stupid magnetic heads and wire them to your Braille charger and keep it plugged in. If the car electronics do something to that charger connection than it’s a whole different game.

I also notice that the actual charging circuit on the car when running leaves the battery not fully charged after driving and that lower voltage may not make the lithium happy long term so you should charge it often.

Thanks again for the great video.

 

When you set the alarm, there is greater electrical parasitic loss.

A motion sensor which monitors for motion inside the cabin is the turned on. There are also other security sensors which are activated. These activities do draw electrical power.

That’s the trade off for securing your Ferrari

 

awesome work. You are a very patient man.

 

Ray please read the info on the link:

https://www.redarc.com.au/alternator-vs-fixed-alternator

I have been studying the charging strategy of the 488 and now everything makes sense to me. It is reported that even after a long hard run the car battery still needs charging. This was very much confusing me and I was suspecting a bad battery or charging system. This is a purposely designed characteristic of the smart alternator in this car as described very well in the link above. It was making me crazy watching the voltage change significantly as I drove the car. Usually in a regular alternator the voltage hits 14.4 or so and stays there. The battery is brought up to that voltage and stops the flow of current to it and at that voltage the battery is fully charged. The voltage on the 488 runs from anywhere 12 to 14.5 volts and depends on the control logic and the engine load. I have even seen it dip below 12 volts. I had the dealer tech confirm it by driving another 488 and he saw the same voltage ranges. Put on your volt meter in your dash and watch it move around as you drive. Normally fluctuating voltage like that would signify a charging system failure in a normal alternator car. This is done for fuel efficiency and to take the load off the engine when accelerating. That is why the voltage goes up when you cost. It’s fun to watch and try to understand the control logic.

The key thing to see with this is that the system is not designed to take the battery to full charge at any point. It stops pumping power to the battery way before full charge that and that is why we always see bulk charging on the tender as soon as we attach it even after a long drive. I have verified this with running a meter in series directly to the battery to confirm the voltage and power flow during driving. I also have measured the amount of power pushed back into the battery with my Ctek 7002 after a long drive and it is very consistent. This and the fact that the car has a large parasitic drain when parked make the attachment of the tender critical to get any life out of the battery.

Now as per the lithiums I have been using them for years in cars and motorcycles. Braille is very nice and high end and I know many people in the Porsche club that use them with good results as I have used other brands, but the battery chemistry is what it is. Braille may have some nice electronics that will disconnect the battery to protect itself from a fatal discharge like the Ferrari OEM one, but if you get any lithium cell to less that 2.3 or so volts per cell somehow it’s realistically dead period. Lithium has a way smaller self discharge than the lead acid but capacity is capacity and these cars just suck power when off and the LA battery has more capacity than the Braille that you put in. The car discharge will greatly outweigh the self discharge and you will run down that battery like any other battery unless you plug it in. The Braille will die first compared to the LA you took out.

Lithium has awesome power to weight ratio as compared to LA but that’s about it. It hates the cold and not recommended for cold winter environments as the chemistry will not deliver the amps till it heats itself up as the current flows. In my track cars in the winter the only way to start them sometimes was to turn on the lights to heat up the lithium and then you got enough current to start the engine. Happens on my motorcycles as well with Shorai if I get a ride in the winter and it is even described on there web page.

Try this experiment. Put a volt meter in the Braille after a full charge using your charger. Then drive the car for a while and when you get back let things settle and measure the voltage again. It will be less than a full charge. Then without the tender plugged in measure the voltage in three day periods and you can avaerage out the power pulled out of the battery. It will shock you how power hungry these cars are when off. This will give you an idea how long you can keep the car unplugged and not hurt the Braille. That is why the manual states to put on the tender after not running for 72 hours just to be safe with any battery installed.

Hope this sheds some light. Sorry for the long post.

 

Thanks for this informative post!

I wonder about the differences in the Pista which offers a lithium Ion Battery!
Is the Pista able to measure the ‘state of charge’ of its Lithium Ion battery ? Presumably this would be the best way to inform the alternator about how to charge the battery. This system would be ‘smarter’!

I’m also curious to know if there is a different trickle charger too, which can sense the SOC of the battery.

 

I have two of these in my 360, and Braille told me that you can completely dump these and recharge ~800 times and it won't hurt them.

 

It seems Braille is really good at disconnecting the battery from the load when the voltage gets critically low using the protection electronics before the battery gets hurt so bringing it back is guaranteed. That is one of the reasons it’s expensive and worth it.

 

After installing the lithium ion battery, are you guys still using the OEM factory battery tender to charge the battery? If so, that will kill your lithium ion battery over time. Lithium ion battery requires lithium ion battery chargers, as the peak voltage is different than that of a conventional battery.

On my 911R when I installed lithium ion battery, my tech had to go into the system and reset the computer to accommodate for lithium ion battery, with the revised voltage reading.

 

I asked the dealer tech to confirm wether the car electronics do anything to the tender connector or if it’s just a straight connection. I’ll report back when I hear. They did not know the answer.

They also seem to think just like your 911R there may be some different setting in that needs to be activated to make the charging circuit appropriate for Lithium but not sure so they will investigate and get back to me. With the Pista that will most likely answer the questions since I think that has a Lithium battery standard.

 

If you get a chance when you talk to them, please ask if you can use the Ferrari tender to keep the system alive when changing out the battery. If its straight through then I don't see why not. I think it would be a really great way to avoid all ECU and any reboot issues. Of course, you need to wrap the connections during the swap but I think it would be really beneficial to just do the swap and then be ready to go. Thank you.

 

Very interesting stuff. One box-ticking question for anyone who might have checked: is the warranty unaffected given the different characteristics of the lithium battery?