LiFePO4 battery from Bioenno Power
 

I recently agreed to a sponsorship arrangement with BioEnno Power. They produce lithium iron phosphate starter batteries, among other things. As part of that sponsorship, they sent me their largest battery of this type. It's 9 pounds and is rated at 1250CCA and 30-70Ah.

You can read more about it here: https://www.bioennopower.com/collect...bs-blp-121250m

I just wanted to throw up a post here so I can start to share my experience with this product.

So far I've found:

1. It weighs 25lbs less than the lead acid battery I had in the car before. That's an enormous weight savings, of course.
2. It seems to start and run the car just fine.
3. The charging light appears to be on. I'm not sure why. I don't use the stock dash often, and I remember that charging light being on previously, before I replaced the battery with a new one a couple months ago. At any rate, I read 14.4-14.5v at both the battery and alternator while the car is running.

At 1250cca, that thing could start a B-17.

It is a monstrous little thing. Let's hope it lasts through a time trial session. ;)

Notapreppie has their 625CCA model in his car. It seems maybe a little marginal, so I asked for the big'un.

Actually, I have the 480 CCA unit. It works well enough above 50°F but I'd recommend the 625 CCA unit as a minimum.

I suspect they have CA and CCA mixed up.

For anybody not in the know, there are a few caveats with LiFePO4 ownership.

The BioEnnoPower units come with protection circuitry to help prevent overdischarge and overcharge scenarios. Many don't. It's easy to destroy (possibly catastrophically) a lithium battery by overcharging or overdischarging.

LiFePO4 batteries don't like the cold very much. Internal resistance increases as temperature decreases. Mine would barely turn my car over below 40°F and is still a little sluggish below 60°F. Fortunately, the battery will warm up with use causing resistance to drop so leaving the headlights and accessory power on for a minute or two before starting can help with this.

Speaking of cold, don't charge a LiFePO4 battery <32°F. Doing so will permanently plate metallic lithium onto the anode and make the battery more vulnerable to mechanical failure.

So these types of batteries don't handle the cold well, but how to they handle the heat of the engine bay?

They do NOT handle high temps well.

Bioenno Power spec the max operating temperature as 60°C (140°F). This is definitely not for under-hood use.

LiFePO4 batteries do not handle temperature extremes well - especially hot conditions. I have very high quality LiFePO4 in my high end RC toys and the aftermarket world is making $$$$ on better cooling parts.