First off, Optima batteries should be trickle charged vs. a fast charger-that's how they get burned up. And Supe, do you have all of your accessories ran off your battery or through your alternator directly? If you swap to a later style 100+ amp alternator and wire your system to take advantage of the remote voltage sensing, you should never have any charging problems running at the track. I can even set you up with a reliable 200 amp upgrade kit if you are running a 6" cased GM alternator. Email or PM me for ideas on how to configure your charging system a little better! -Jabin
Optima battery/voltage question
- Thread starter Supe
- Start date
gmachinz said:
i dunno about the conventional optimas but i know for a fact that the g31s like a good fast charge up to around 15.3 volts @ 30 amps.
Thanks for the help guys.
Jabin: Right now they're wired to a central wire that WOULD be off the alternator if there was one on there. Because I still need to find a workable alternator mount setup, I just have the wires spliced in off the battery.
Jabin: Right now they're wired to a central wire that WOULD be off the alternator if there was one on there. Because I still need to find a workable alternator mount setup, I just have the wires spliced in off the battery.
Okay-so it sounds like the battery can't keep up-the battery isn't meant to be used as a power supply-just to store it. You need to connect your accessory wires along with the remote sensing wire to a common junction. Off the other side of that junction you can run an 8 gauge lead coming from the main charge post. This way, the amount of current needed is correctly and quickly read by the voltage regulator and amperage is passed through the junction and out to the accessories, thus skipping having to run through the battery altogether. Much less voltage drop means a happy, steady volt gauge inside the car! Ahhh...remote voltage sensing-eat your heart out 1-wire alternators!!! lol. -Jabin
I've made 18 passes in one evening, and never charged my batteries, although I have two. Still started and ran like a champ.
2/3rds of those passes were with transbrake/delay box.
Why even run your fan when you're at the track? You should be staging it cold anyways for best ET. I can see running it a little bit after the pass, but that should be it.
2/3rds of those passes were with transbrake/delay box.
Why even run your fan when you're at the track? You should be staging it cold anyways for best ET. I can see running it a little bit after the pass, but that should be it.
Robert1320 said:
:?: They recover from a dead flat charge at over 100 cycles at something like 99%. Our battery was always flat dead at the start of every race weekend. We'd just charge it the night before and go. Never had a problem with an Optima. We had the same one since they first came out. You must have had a bad one or a bad charger.
Tommy
LS6 Tommy said:
ive had the one in my car for 11 years, its been dead/low/ cranked to full blast on the charger and still works like the day i bought it
Nope gone thru about 3 Opt and 4 of the Ex.
Tried different chargers also.
Once they start to go bad (6 to 12mo) done for.
Tried different chargers also.
Once they start to go bad (6 to 12mo) done for.
We would never run a car with out a alternator.
It is not worth the loss.
And if you are going rounds and getting hot lapped you can get bent by not having time to charge. Not worth it. I understand just trying to get done to get to the races. But too much to lose.
It is not worth the loss.
And if you are going rounds and getting hot lapped you can get bent by not having time to charge. Not worth it. I understand just trying to get done to get to the races. But too much to lose.
Robert1320 said:
I understand. This is a one time deal as this is my only shot to run this year. It is an open track rental, so I have as much time as I need to charge between rounds. Once it's in storage on Columbus Day weekend, I can focus on fabbing a bracket or picking up a new one with a drive mandrel.
Most of my concern stems from my last optima battery. It was maybe 2 months old or so, and wouldn't hold a charge. I brought it back to Autozone, and the battery was indeed bad. The guy that worked there told me I was about the 10th return, and Optima told them they had a bad lot of certain ones come out in June.
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