Electrical System Upgrade on the Series II
 

This is meant to start out as my project, and hopefully become a DIY if I see some improvements.


Intro: Attempt to improve the electrical stability & efficiency of the 13B engine.

Scope: Install a supercapacitor system in the test car (series II), and the second test car (S4RX7), and see if any improvement is made to the fuel efficiency, spark, starting, and daily mixed City and Highway driving of 15 miles per trip. Also sensor reading consistency and stability.

Concepts:
-At least 6, 350 Farad 2.5 or 2.7 volt cells per in series to create a max voltage of 15 volts at 58 Farads fully charged (~36-50 Farads at 12.5-14.1 driving voltages).

-Reduce weight, and increase free air space in the car's engine compartment for cooling/heating efficiency

-Attempt to improve on this over just a simple trunk relocation(backup plan)

-Document work & keep quality professional to prevent dealer hassle.

-Hopefully obtain some high efficiency from the spark. (Wishful thinking)

-(idea) Add an auxiliary solar panel windshield charger to keep capacitors charged (and prevent drain from keyless entry), and run a small aux fan keeping heat out of the car cabin while parked in hot weather or after a hot drive.

-(idea) Add a PC680 battery on a relay or transistor/fet (PWM) for use when voltage drops below 10v on the supercapacitor during a starting condition. (Controlled by a voltage reference oscillator running PWM or just a simple relay, diode, and resistor kicking in at 10v, and a zener/scr kicking it off at 13.5)

-(idea) Use a 3S or 4S Lipo battery, but NOT in the LaserHacker method of direct to capacitors. (NOT SAFE for charging the LiPo)


Findings:

(series II)[From Service highlights & electrical system section of FSM)
Many systems in the PCM, DSC, EPS, & Climate Control require at least 12.7 volts constantly, most assume 13.5 for correct calculation. Lower than 12.7 will result in skewed numbers at operating time. (What I mean by this is if the Alternator has 1440watts available (100% used), it will follow the principle of least resistance and the smaller wires will get more voltage because they have higher resistance. Example is 7-40 of the Service Highlights. The logic Mazda Applies is using 12.7 at 90%, so 12.5 at B+ is already out of spec.

(Still confirming)
Series II models can have the same white spots and persist after being cleaned with 99% alcohol meaning they are discharging more than "just once." One of the TSBs calls with a " “corona discharge phenomenon”" and "This phenomenon is not effect on the vehicle performance or IG coil performance." Is not effect huh? Hmm that plug was pretty far past fucked and the few without the spots were the ones doing their jobs correctly. To get more into it, the one showing the most wear was the trailing. Makes me wonder if the trailing housing is somehow allowing the spark to jump to the body or short in some way.

Starting Conditions
 

2009 Series II R3
42,000 miles
Stock Electrical System
Keyless Entry (DUH)
No Moonroof
BOSE headunit without Navigation
Lotsotrollsdualrearmountedasscannons


Group 35 AGM Flat Plate Battery (Exide Edge FP-AGM35)
-650CCA
-110 minute RC @ 25A
-1 Year Old
~42 Pounds

Going to use my logs from the last year to compare to. Starting with the most recent. (Lots and Lots of Logs!)

Possibly Worn out plugs, Coils, and wires. (will be changed & steps repeated)

So here is what I have been tinkering with so far.

54 Total: 2.5v 350 farad Maxwell Supercaps with tabs and I have 7 sets of 6 in series for various projects.
20 Total: 6.4 Watt Flexible Solar Panels @ 1.6v O.V. with 2.0v max each. I think 5a short current.

I was going to use what I prepared, which was 12 total with 6 in series twice bonded per cap. (groups of 2 x 6), with the Laserhacker Balancing Circuit. The circuit doesn't appear to be working properly for the 2.3 to 2.5 volt reference (when they should start balancing), and appears to stay on till 2.1 volts per cell. So I think the LEDs included have the wrong specs, so I am going to try again with some closes to what I would like to see. I also want to make a Crowbar circuit for 15.1 volts so it can never overcharge. (the 2.5 can apparently hit 2.9 before they go boom)

So here is the new setup:
18x total 350F 2.5 Volt Supercapacitors in 6 in series bonded at the ends + and -, not per cell (Higher Resistance)
2x/ea 5/16 Positive and Negative Busbars for hooking up to the electrical system.
Super Capacitors broke in with 15 Charge / Discharges (Fast & Slow, never shorted)

I think I am going to start with relocating the battery to the trunk, and putting the super-capacitor pack in the battery section to protect it from the heat till I can make sure it is spot welded properly. I also want to be able to disable it via a circuit breaker just in case something goes south.

Capacitors do not have discharge limits as Lead Acid Batteries, so they can discharge to 0 and still provide maximum amperage. From what I understand anything under 9 and the car will cut off, or may damage itself, so I am playing it safe and starting with a battery in the trunk, and Caps in the front. (Should stabilize the wire resistance amount in between.)

If math/searching is correct, 58 Farads / 15V would mean 58 amps per second per volt decreasing as the Farads drop. IE if charged to 48F at 14v, 48A/S per package of 6 capacitors. Once it hits the battery voltage, the battery will charge the caps, and all good math goes to heaven, but the bad math goes everywhere.


Step 1: Clean Grounds, verify connections, and improve grounding. (True for most Rotaries)
-Log Results for improvements
Step 2: ifChange(){string DocumentResults;}else{void MoveOn();}
Step 3: Relocate Battery to trunk
Step 4: ifChange(){string DocumentResults;}else{void MoveOn();}
Step 5: Add SuperCapacitor
Step 6: ifChange(){string DocumentResults;}else{void MoveOn();}
Step 7: Check Results for changes between Steps 0 through 7 oldest to newest

Ill see how those go before I try running without a battery or running a relay for the battery.

So wait, you're working on something to replace the battery?

Does your engine have verified problems with the electrical system that you're trying to solve?

This is badinfluence. He gets bored.

A relay for switching between battery and capacitor would be better than anything solid state for this application. Why would you need to switch from one to the other anyway? It would be simpler to just put them in parallel and get the best of both worlds.

You should start away from lipos, if you really want to go that route use lifepo4.

No I solved them, twice now. The only uncertainty is if the problems have done some outstanding damage that is intermediate and not showing up till certain conditions are met. So far it looks like things are legitimately fixed.

a prime example would be worn spark plugs coils from insufficient and inconsistent power coming from the wrong untied down battery.

First time it was the moron who put the group 26 battery. 2nd time it was the clockspring /steeringwheel CANBUS pass through making noise on the CANLINe.

Yes, quite a lot of the time!

The voltages are not lined up with any of them, so you would be constantly overcharging the battery risking a fire

Li-Po would be 11.1v-12.8v so 14.1 from the alternator would be overcharging it.(3S)
Li-ion would either be the same or worse with the 3.6 vs 3.7 cells. (3S)
LiFEPo4 get much much closer at 3.2-3.65v, but running them without a proper protection governer is dangerous since they need much much more field testing, use, and improvement to be safe and reliable. (but they could tolerate 14.1v from the Alternator better.)(4S)

I still think the solution is switched circuits with the lithium. The reason not to run parallel is inconsistencies in the resistance, plus the 14.1v charging rate. If you have 6 supercaps with a max working voltage of 15, and the alternator is putting out 14.1, they are going to charge first, very fast. With the Lithium battery (doesn't matter which one), it is going to want to match that high voltage, or if the voltage drops because the car is off, the caps are going to discharge to charge the battery and drop to it's voltage and waste energy doing so since the battery has a higher resistance than the capacitors do. Really your negating there purpose all together if you cuff a chain with a boat on the end of it to their leg.

The main gains I see would be the quick recharge of the caps, and the alternator relaxing most of the time because there is so little resistance and waste on charging a taxed battery. If you put a 3S Lipo/Li-ion on it, it would constantly be trying to overcharge it and creating resistance, dropping the voltage. The caps are designed to be able to throw their entire charge out the terminals several thousand times without damage. Not even high discharge Lipo/Lifepo4 can do that as long as they can because they have higher resistances and a narrower band on operation because they are chemical.

A big place we could use the gain is on the starter just by itself. If you charged the caps up to Max, and isolated the starting wire from the main system (Positive Wire), you could see some better starts because the voltage would be higher, resistance would go down, and the caps would output much more peak power faster and longer on the curve than a 12v battery. By the time you drop enough voltage to need to use a 12v battery, you should have already been started. IE 15v fully charged, by the time you hit 10, you should have started so the alternator will charge it back up. Worse case scenario your 12v battery would recharge the caps when the starter relay is NOT cranking the engine, isolating the battery from the caps and starter relay. Even for a few seconds that you would stop cranking, it would have enough time to recharge. You wouldn't want to use that higher voltage to supply power to the PCM because it was outside specs at 15 volts. I believe the voltage regulator would do it's job and compensate, but with the series II PCMs doing some new and unmapped things, that is a unnecessary risk. Keeping things at the designed 14.1 does not carry a huge risk.

This is for either from the Alternator Positive and Engine Negative to the Fusebox & Car body, or from the Fusebox Positive and Carbody to the negative of the battery/caps.

The Connector is an SB175 by Anderson Power Projects and maxes out at, you guessed it 175amps constant at 600 volts. Pretty fucking heavy duty. The Wire is Rockford Fosgate 4AWG which they claim does 40% more than the AWG standard. The AWG standard is 95, so that is what I will count on. That is 1339watts at the Alternator's 14.1 volts. (Volts times Amps=Watts) I think the Alternator maxes out at 1440 watts, so close enough to the 100 amp max.

Had all this around from a industrial power system that never got installed. The Connectors are expensive as fuck, but they accept 8AWG, 4AWG, 2AWG, 0/1AWG, and I think 0/2AWG terminals without switching anything except the metal wire housing. So I can mix and match. The wire is apparently rated for 90C, but I am going to keep the runs short, and may shield them with Gold tape and/or aluminium tape. Chemical resistant welding wire is what I would use if I had it. It is black so it draws no attention, and it a no bullshit product without claims they do better, or anything like that. Most hardware stores for that one, and even cheaper than the Rockford Product. Just already had the wire....

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...1eb1e940f3.jpg


Made this one from Scratch


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ad8a37bc91.jpg


Before I added the 4AWG anderson


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...66965d21f3.jpg


My way of tinning fro the SB175


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...903b8f0bf9.jpg


My way of tinning fro the SB175


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...468cbf770c.jpg


Positive SB175


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...10aafd043f.jpg


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...c389d2a5f4.jpg


Rockford Fosgate from Factory, crimped only


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ab1a4d810e.jpg


Added some solder to help out


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...04f7b79f87.jpg


SB175 Negative Tinning


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...76e718a5e5.jpg


Complete Negative for the SB175


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...1f11b2b4ca.jpg


Comeplete SB175


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...cecea03d65.jpg


Extra cover for the Positive for later.

Pain in the Ass iPhone 5 camera! I will upload some better ones in the next "batch" Is there a way to resize pictures with the stock RX8club picture uploader? I will manually resize my next batch just in case.

functional battery spoiler wings!
 

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...8ffacfce64.jpg


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...0ad71b7285.jpg

You're crazy.

Isn't that how you collect energy from the spoiler?


But in all seriousness, I got them from someone liquidating an Ebike project on the Internet. They are the 2.7 volt 350 farad cap enclosures with some active balancing instead of the diode/LED passive balancing available on eBay. They are made by an engineering firm that specializes in capacitors. The carbon fiber was added by the Ebike guy, I think to fit between the frame without adding enough weight. I just looked at it and was like, that looks like a wing diffuser with some kind of fin.

Talk about being in the dark. I didn't even know this was an RX-8 problem!

It is and it isn't. It isn't a Mazda problem, it is a FORD problem. It was those Ford executives that told Mazda it has to have 2 more doors. Also Ford hasn't been known for electrical reliability, but in their defense no one really has, not even Tesla..... Not many people stay on top of their electrical system, and it could be argued that it doesn't matter. I really want to know if this coil arcing problem is related to a build up of resistance somewhere or could be avoided by increasing the base voltage.

Just about every car tested will improve with a super-capacitor in place of a battery. They are already putting that into production. The kicker is, they are already setting fire and being recalled because of the lowest bidder/energy design. (spend the least amount of time, money, energy, service,etc for max profits) There is energy everywhere in the car that can be collected, and in some cases, the benefits increase.

Perfect example is using the front brake rotors are hub motors to brake magnetically or generate electricity. When done properly, this would not increase friction on the rotor because the motor would not touch the rotor. So now you have a few Kilowatts per second (not hour), for a very short period. This in some primitive ways is regenerative braking. I say instead of adding weight for batteries, and whatever else there is, balance and lighten the rotors, add magnetism, add your hub motor assembly, and use that energy (mostly resistance), to run the cooling fan as you slow down. (You need a load for the motor to create resistance) Otherwise a resistor or charge a supercap.

I don't have access to the cool shit that it would take to prove that theory or mainly even create a prototype, but the idea stands. Charging a battery is a wasteful thing compared to a super capacitor, but a super capacitor is a temporary source of extremely high power, but for a short duration(0-16.2V). A battery is a source of medium power, for a long duration, but at the cost of a variable resistance based on voltage. (11.0-13.5v) So the idea is that *IF* you can get the car started, it would need very little energy to keep going since you do not need to charge a battery, only a cap for 10 seconds or so. It also would provide high amounts of power at low resistance for the ignition system's requirements allowing you to pulse "harder" and quicker than with a battery being charged, used, etc.


Today, I cracked the case of the Series II and I found B coils with arc marks on them. I read the TSB about the white spots, and from what I understand they were supposed to be gone on the series II and fixed with B coils. (Maybe C) I also found that the leading coils had copper oxidation on them, which puzzled me. The seal of the plug to wire was good, and it didn't happen on the trailing wires or plugs. The "condenser" is supposed to help with the spark, but I wonder if they are just asking to much of the ignition system as it is, and that is the real reason we have to change our plugs, wires, and etc.

Most Rotaries benefit from some extra grounding and stabilization. (most of which is basically a new battery before you need one, keeping the grounds clean, and maybe beefing up the engine to body/battery grounds a bit)

So in conclusion, is it a problem, maybe not, but anything can be improved and I am going to do it anyway because I am just not normal, so why not see it can help someone else enjoy those rpms a bit.

So I took a peak at the project and things got moved around a lot today. I started by just wanting to change the plugs, but I ended up breaking off one of those two intake elbows in the MAF tube, so I went for distance. (I have another hopefully)

I had whitespots on the coils, and fearing this was coming & knowing I needed coils I bought new plugs and the Raceroots Ls2 coils with the bracket hoping to relocate them.

Here are some cool things I stumbled upon that I haven't seen on the forum before. The battery tray breaks into two parts, a bottom tray, and a side housing with no top or bottom. (the tray is the bottom). The bottom 10mm bolt is a pretty good ground, so it could be another ground to add on. The best part about this is that it would not be hard to take that upper part off, and make some kind of cover for the lower tray and put a battery, supercap, or other in that spot and free up space on top for an intake, ignition coil bracket, just free air, supercharger, or Neon lit picture of Margret Thatcher.

I got the plugs changed and examined and found the leadings had copper oxidization on them which was strange. I didn't see where water had gotten into the wire, nor was there anything in the elbow looking like moisture had been there. I found this just weird. I finished off looking at how the electrical system on the S2 differs in wire routing, wire sizes, and wire quantity. They added a second white wire off the alternator, and did a better job keeping the loom together as far as I can tell, but I want a closer look.


So here is what I did electrically so far:
-Added a 4gauge wire from the engine ground bolt on the engine to the battery post.
- Removed the battery posts to 13mm bolt (2 pieces, the post and the wire terminations)
-Added 5/16 4 awg terminal to positive and negative banks
-Terminated 4 awg wire to SB175 plug
-Added supercap to SB175 plug #2
- Added a bypass SB175 to keep the PCM settings while I change things around. (yes I did this safely)
-Removed Battery, possibly for good, if things improve or do anything but get worse.
-Removed intake to get to coil bracket
-Added a M6 "piggyback" bolt to the positive fused, fusebox for the Bypass SB175.


So right now there is 4AWG wire from the supercap to the anderson connector. That is the biggest restriction right now in my design, but the run is only 2 inches long, so it isn't a big one. I am still thinking how I want to redo everything and keep it clean and simple without causing unnecessary attention or problems. I test loaded the car by turning on accessory with just the Supercap, and it dropped from 12.4 to 12.13, then recovered to 12.33. Considering my battery is only at 12.4 that was the restriction of the testing. The cap can go on to the 14.2 volts the alternator puts out and stay there after shutdown. That gives you about an extra volt of capacity when cranking, which on our cars more than likely won't mean a thing. I didn't those the PCM calibration so I didn't crank test it. If I do end up having to recalibrate, I will do some more extensive testing. I don't want to be recalibrating while I seafoam the car a little bit, it will throw off the PCM for a little bit.

HOLY FUCK BATMAN! The EPS can draw 60AMPS! Sorry if you all knew that, but I was looking over the wiring diagram and that seems just insane to me. No wonder my battery seems to get its ass kicked!

So far the top 3 I have found are ignition System, EPS, and Starter. I had no idea that the EPS was such a big boy in the electrical system. From what I can tell it is fed off 1x 8 gauge white wire. I got it confused with the 2x white wires off the alternator. (series II added one more wire)

What would you consider "verified?" The car was running ok one day, (after I wrote this), keep getting worse, then got better for 1 day, then the next day stumbed pretty hard. The PCM is not throwing the Misfire code, but there is audible misfiring and P420 is on. Now the leading coils have white spots.

Other than running rich and the occasional stumble, post 3.5K RPM the car was unchanged, and the LFTPs even started subtracting until you hit idle. (points at heat)

I think the only way to tell is to have a line of RX8s all tear down and inspect with and without problems showing from the owners. Most sane people aren't going to want to do that with a Saturday.

I wasn't asking to be a dick, I am just wondering what another person considers "verified."

I think yes, and worse than I thought at this point. (But not enough for a regular driver to care)

I just meant to ask if you had a problem with the car that you knew for sure was electrical in nature. Sounds like that's the case, at least to your satisfaction.

Yeah, I am halfway between yes and no. Everything that happened was because of previous abuse from either the previous owner, repo man, the auction house, or the buy'n'large car lot. Most of it appeared to be recent, so I am going to go with it wasn't the previous owner.

OK so an update on this:

FUCK FUCK FUCK my fingers hurt

I relocated my RaceRoots LS2 coil kit I am installing to the battery box, but it is a tight fit. I think that is the solution, get the ignition coils to where heat can't attack them as much. The battery box also has a fresh air duct from the ram scoop which will help out if you moving.

I had to redo the 2 inch harness twice and splice things together while keeping it clean. That sucked ass. I had to resleeve it twice, which was just irritating.

So the first time I used wire loom and sleeving and it was acceptable. Then my doorbell rang and my 2000 degree sleeving showed up, and I was like, well fuck you Amazon, the only time you are early. So I looked at my wire job and went, well lets do this right and started over. I labeled each end, sleeved every pair, and sleeve the extra ground for the 4th pin of the LS2 coil. I kapton taped the sleeving and under it I put a label with the appropriate cable on each end. Then to make it fit in the battery box I had to modify the battery tray a bit, but without destroying it, so I cut part of the wall so the bracket could mount. It was cobbled together when an emergency came up at work, and I had to try and drive it as is. (This was the first start). It fired right up and my jaw just dropped, like WHOA it fucking started and I got the wires right? Shit man.

Immediate smoke from the tail pipes indicating it is burning off the shit the old coils and plugs didn't.

So at this point the car as a 58 Farad supercap on it wired up the battery posts, relocated ignition everything, new plugs, new LS2 coils, and a botched together battery box. I decided to be careful and not drive it out of the garage till it is right.

So here is the plan since we are approaching a 3 day weekend.


*Acquire longer coil wires (mine are to tight)
*Redo harness with 14 gauge wires instead of 18. (what I had laying around)
*resleeve obviously
*Acquire connector pins that aren't crimped so it takes a lot less time.
* mount ignition coils vertical instead of horizontal with the coil wires facing up. (prevents discharge to the body & also keeps it away from the alternator belt(upper left), & accessory belt to the lower right)
*Finish battery relocation mod just in case things with the supercap don't work out. Examine what it will take to create a part time battery mod based on shunt current. (Example if you running the EPS, Lights, Air Pump, & IG while the alternator isn't in prime range)

Eventually I am going to get an AEM intake, but instead of the intake tray from BHR, I am going to have it cover the entire length across the battery too to reject more heat. That will also give me a nice shelf for the coils, capacitor, and anything else I might need. (also a PC680 battery)


So it seems ambitious, but so has the last 4 days been with everything else my life and trying to get this squared away.

I really think the answer is get the damn coils away from that OEM spot. Had I have more access to fabrication materials I would produce a solution and put things in the recess between the master cylinder and the strut tower. There is about 5 places with just enough space to be sketchy and maybe 3 where you can relocate them to without adding latency and or creating problems.

I have been thinking about relocating my coils to my tray. But based on the readings from my laser thermometer, the tray area is not that much cooler (everything in the engine bay sits at about 200F, give or take a few degrees depending on the material), despite the heat resistant coating.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ca72991b62.jpg

Faku Gooby! Enginie bay so kleen!


Have you thought about adding a vertical wall around those tanks? That would make it basically a prism.

You have a turbo right? about how much does that turn up the heat on the bay? (I am guessing 50% or less based on how clean and open things are in that picture.)

What are you doing with that marine fusebox in the upper left hand corner?

CAR IS RUNNING!

What started out as a simple ignition coil and plug change took on a mind of it's own. I saw immediate benefit from the capacitor/battery relocation, but not in a way I expected!?

1. the HIDs are WAY brighter! I had no idea this would happen and the only explanation I have is that because of the capacitor's lower resistance the Ballasts are able to get a higher voltage off the alternator/capacitor.
2. Ignition wise cannot be checked right now. I can't say anything about the ignition system till after the car calibrates and I get a replacement elbow for the SSR valve. (Mine split in the process)
3. This was a complicated install, but I have many tips for anyone else who would try it to make it so much easier!
4. Car felt better, but that cannot be separated from the fact that I changed my coils and plugs at the same time.
5. Started up faster. (This I did expect), Since there is more power and less resistance the starter can turn over faster. Here is how it works in that 1 second.
Capacitor will have a very low resistance off <1 OHm, battery somewhere around 9 ohms. The capacitor will drain faster, but allow more power quicker and harder than the battery. Once the capacitor drains to the same or below the battery voltage, there will be a bit of a competition for who will provide power to the starter. Because there is about 15 feet of 4AWG between, the capacitor will draw the power from the battery and then it will go to the starter, effectively like a water tower in a city pipeline. Eventually if you didn't start up the battery would start to outpower the capacitor and the battery would stop charging the capacitor and provide the power directly. My guess is right around when your starter catches fire from cranking to much.



So here is the version .7 wiring diagram

Removed Battery posts, left ring terminals.
Removed Battery, and relocated to trunk. Replace terminals on battery. Added 4 awg wire to posts via 5/16 terminal to SB175 anderson plug. Added SB175 Anderson plug with 4 awg to body via 5/16 terminal at Amplifer ground on driver side of trunk. Added 4 AWG (1 ft) to 140amp circuit breaker. Added 15ft of wire to trunk. Added 2nd 140 amp circuit breaker. Added 4AWG from CB to BATTERY side of the fusebox so it retains and keeps the 120amp isolation fuse in place.

So Battery>Anderson Plug>Circuit Breaker> wire > Circuit Breaker > Fusebox Battery terminal

For the capacitor I added a ring terminal and then a 4AWG black wire with a #10 to 4AWG terminal for the ground, and a #10 to 4AWG to a 5/16 terminal and added it to the factory EPS fuse housing keeping it reversible. (No wires cut)

Capacitor > Ring terminal > Stock wiring

It is pretty damn botched together since push came to shove at work and I needed something fast. When I get the elbows finally I will disassemble and go for version 1.0.

The ignition coils in the battery box seems to be a real solution so far other than the #1 wire being to short due to some miscalculation. I recommend buying a kit and terminating your own plug wires for this project. You can also thermal sleeve them to protect them.

So the voltage definitely stayed higher for the drive cycle, and despite a nasty bump that knocked my battery Anderson plug off, the car didn't skip a beat. Even when I stopped and reconnected the plug there was only a small dip since the battery wasn't at 14.3 volts like the capacitor is.


So Lessions learned so far.
1. STAINLESS STEEL ZIPTIES WILL KILL YOU. WEAR KEVLAR GLOVES! I was bleeding so much it was annoying me.
2. The stock battery box is well designed, but realistically it is in a bad place heat wise. I am surprised more people don't bitch about their battery with the extreme heat that is around it. The bottom is made of Fiberglass, and the rest is plastic. The fiberglass/paper mesh keeps it from melting.
3. Terminate your own plug wires
4. Fuck working in I.T.


So here are my suggestions so far.
-Buy a carbon fiber part kit. Take the ECU cover and start making a mold out of it. Add the super capacitor to the right side of the mold like a 90 degree angle. Remove the battery box.

-This should allow you to securely mount the capacitor pack and dress up the engine bay at the same time. You could use the rest of the kit to do the fusebox, and even put the capacitor over there instead if you are willing to relocate the EPS fuse/wires.

This is highly reversible since I did not cut any wires, I will post tiered steps on what to do as soon as I have everything apart again.

Set aside 6 to 10 hours for this one. It isn't so much the straight forward stuff, it is the checking and the sleeving of the cables that will eat you on this one. The wires go past 2 sets of belts, so you don't want to fuck that up and not secure them. Leave 1 hour for testing with a "10 foot test." Exactly as it sound, back out, drive 10 feet, slam on your brakes, reverse, and pull back in and check everything again. (Check everything twice before)

Make sure the car is dead of all electrical power beforehand. I was able to keep power on the car for the entire 9 days I attempted this mod, but the ECU reset anyway, so it was pointless. Be safe and just accept that you are going to have to re-calibrate.

Lithium chemistry batteries don't like floating it makes them age faster. I briefly considered a Li-FeO4 battery with a buck controller down to 10v and a charger driven off the ignition switch, but I settled on a SLA deep cycle.

The SLA doesn't draw much current when fully charged (no lead acids do) it floats happily at normal running voltage, and it has more capacity and less weight compared to a regular starting battery. It also can be relocated to the trunk with small gauge wire because it never sees high current draw.

Good luck.

Why two breakers before a fuse? What's the point of that?

Going to break it into 3 line segments


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...09603d38cb.jpg

Battery positive to breaker 1
-the battery shares the ground of the car, anything post segment 1 shorting to ground trips the breaker

Segment 2 breAker to breaker
Protects from a positive short from battery(1) or capacitor(3) on the firewall or post breaker 2

Segment 3 fuse box positive to circuit breaker. There is no fuse between the battery post terminal in the fuse box and battery. The main isolates only from the alternator. Short the battery positive wire and your fucked. The circuit breaker isolates the battery from the system, segment 2 from 3, and the capacitor from the battery.

Segment 2 also runs along the driver footwell, so if worn down, it could short.

I have blown a main fuse with a amp before on the road, and it leaves you pretty high and dry for options. The circuit breakers are for protecting from shorts mostly but also allow for quick battery changes, wiring changes without live wires exposed, and jump start isolation. It is a good system, and for 10 bucks it protects you pretty well.

Still drawing up the diagram, but it makes sense.