Bought I inexpensive amazon charger for lithium batteries, in 1 hour had my RS-30 up to 4 blue LED's.

My son suggested we extend the rear hatch emergency pull through the bottom of the car, hidden, if you will, as an emergency access to the battery should it shut itself off. If I can find a decent way to do this I'll post pics and parts needed.

 

Installed the Liteblox battery yesterday. Mounted absolutely clean to the trunk with the universal adaptor plate supplied by Liteblox.

I used three of the four upwardly directed threaded studs on trunk floor, in the way proposed by Unhinged with M8 connecting nuts and M8 bolts through holes that I drilled and filed in the universal adaptor plate. The fourth stud was spaced to far apart from the others, the adaptor plate is quite small compared to the OEM battery tray. I placed washers between the connecting nuts and the bottom of the adaptor plate since the bottom surface of the adaptor plate is uneven (bottom is milled out so there is a rim around the outer edge). The install is very clean and stable and relatively easy, took me less than 2 hours and I took my time and took a few pictures in the process that are attached

I had hoped that I could countersunk the flat head bolts completely level with the upper surface of the adaptor plate, but that turned out to challenging since the holes needed to be placed right at the edges of the adaptor plate. That meant that the mounting bracket at the bottom of the LiteBlox battery was at three corners resting on the elevated flat heads and the medially arranged bolts that secure the battery to the adaptor plate would bend the (carbon) bottom plate of the battery. I did not want to expose the battery housing to such stresses so I took a hacksaw ad removed the excess bracket/bottom plate material from the corners (used a file round off the sharp edges left by the hacksaw). Surprisingly easy and neat to cut through carbon with a hacksaw. I plan to replace the ugly flat head bolts with black hex bolts, just for looks.

Thus, the adaptor plate is well secured to the trunk with three M8 bots and given the ridiculously low weight of the LiteBlox compared to the OEM arrangement the connection is likely to be heavily overdimensionned.

The OEM battery tray is used to secured the portion of the cable boom going to the rear end of the car. The LiteBlox adaptor plate is much smaller so the side of the adaptor plate is too far from the cable boom to support it (as was my original plan). To avoid that the cables rub and wear out against the trunk floor I have now ducktaped them to the trunk floor but I am not particularly proud of the part of my install. Does any of you have a better idea for securing the cable boom?

Fitting the clamps to the terminals completely straight forward. My only worry was the length of the cable connecting the clamp to the fuse box, it is only just long enough due to the Liteblox being so much shorter than the OEM battery and the plus pole thus being placed more to the rear of the car.

The foam unit that holds the goey bottle is fixed only with Velrco but held in place by the OEM battery on one side. Without the OEM battery supporting it on one side I was afraid the foam unit could get loose and the bottle and the nutlock adaptor would be rolling around the trunk floor with all the electronics and cables - not good. So I added a cable binder to the top of the bottle and I am sure it will keep it in place.

I haven't found a neat way to fit the foam unit that holds the towing bolt, but will let you know when I do. This may take a little while because me and a buddy are working on a lightweight version of the towing bolt (more to come about that).

There is now quite a bit of extra space around the LiteBlox batter for fitting e.g. the tire pump, I am working on a neat way to secure the tire pump in this newly created space.

Car fired up without problems, had an engine fault light for the first two short drives (disappeared now) and needed to reconfigure date, time and other settings but otherwise no issues. It was easy to hook up the smartphone app to the battery to monitor it and to shut is down or turn it on (antitheft shut down).

Weight saving more considerable than expected! OEM battery arrangement: 28.6 kg! (63lbs) Litblox 3.2 kg (7lbs). saved 25.4kg (56lbs).

Will be interesting to see how well the new battery charges in daily driving! I will take a screenshot of the batter condition every day the coming two weeks. I expect quite a few days with short drives only so that should be a good test. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Today was the first real drive with the new RS-30 battery installed.

Now I'm not gonna pretend that dropping 55 lbs from a 3800 pound car is somehow going to transform the car to a feather-weight racer, but even on a warm evening in SoCal, on my usual local loop of highway on and off ramps, I did notice the PS4S's struggling significantly more to keep their grip on the pavement in the lower gears. This was true on hard launches as well as accelerating out of turns. On the plus side, while modulating throttle in turns it feels a tad more predictable.

Looking forward to see if the new lightweight rotors make as big a difference in driving dynamics. Bottom line is with a car as powerful as the F type, small changes to the chassis or suspension can make a difference. Think I'll focus on front end weight with future car dieting strategies.

 

Easy, just rip that heavy old V8 lump out and replace it with a nice modern featherweight Ingenium 4 pot!

 

With the V6, I can get out the Dremel tool and start grinding away the back 25% of the engine block that isn't being used.

 

To be honest I could not notice the difference between stock and RS30 battery in performance terms, remember its like a 1/4 tank vs full tank with this much power and torque it is really hard to notice anything.

All I will say is I enjoy getting my car sideways, yes that is possible with AWD in dynamic mode and I will agree having less weight back their does make it more predictable, but that is true of any car, the less weight there is after the back wheels, it becomes far easier to control when skidding around, that is why a Caterham is pretty much the best handling car on the planet as there is nothing behind the back wheels and the one weight on those back wheels is you, fuel tank and a passenger.

Now the brakes, you will notice those instantly, the first thing you will feel is ride quality over poor surfaces, you will then notice turn in is improvement and the car feels lighter. Then when you use the brakes you will notice you have more braking torque and better pedal modulation.

Performance, very hard to detect, I'd say a touch but its always more placebo, I'd say in quarter mile the brakes and battery are worth a tenth, your never going to detect a tenth in real world, but it does all add up.

At somepoint I am going to try and weigh my car, I think Jaguar claim 1705kg for an SVR with ceramics, if I am wrong someone correct me, so be interesting to see if I am around that weight, shall try to weigh the car with less than 1/4 tank of fuel as I believe Jaguar weights are dry weights, so no fuel, oil etc.

 

You'll get a more accurate weight if you weigh the car with a full tank and then subtract the weight of the fuel.

 

Very true, do you know the tank capacity on the F-Type, 70l?

 

Yes, 70 liters.


18.5 US gallons x 6.073 lbs/gal = 112 lbs

 

First week of experiences with the LiteBlox Battery. Charge increases on drives as short as 10 min low speed. The trafficated short work commute 10-15 min it to keeps the battery charged. Lowest voltage was 13.3 after install, highest 13.6. I dont expect to run into low batter charge levels even with many short drives.

Its hard to honestly say that I can feel the 25kg weight saving. I noticed a bigger difference when I went form the OEM wheels to the forged VS Stance wheels, which also saved 24kg but this was rotating and unsprung mass. So my weight savings are now 49kg and when the Wortec rotors are on that will be 70kg of which 45 unsprung-rotating mass :-)

Upon suggestion by Mlebofsky I did a test in the cool of the night (12 deg C) playing DVD on the display in the center console, medium sound, climate on and running lights on (dipped beam – xenon), engine off. That draws 23A i.e. around 300W. Voltage started off at 13.1 (while drawing 23A, 13,6 V before engine start). The plan was to see if the battery would last 15 min and then stil start the car. Here is the discharge curve for this type of cells https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithiu...ge_diagram.svg

However after 10min into the test the car shuts off without warning. I dont think it was because the battery was about to be depleted, just the car management system deciding enough is enough. Battery voltage just before shutdown had not measurably dropped (still 13.1V). I started the engine up right after without a problem, turned it off, left it overnight and no problem starting next morning.

I recall from experience with the OEM battery that the car would also shut down after approx. 10 min whith merely the radio and climate running.

Could one fo you perform the same test with DVD, climate and dimmed beam on the OEM battery for comparison?

 

Yep, the Jag battery management system automatically shuts things down after 10 minutes of audio, AC etc if the engine isn't running.

 

Thanks F-T-T for the info. Seems these lithium batteries are ready for prime time use.
Still, for those of us using the antigravity RS-30, we'll need access to the battery should it shut itself off for any reason. Imagine if it does it when the car is locked?
I personally have had no luck opening the doors with the manual key, and with the car locked, you can't open hood, rear hatch, can't jump start, etc.

Adding a manual rear hatch cable that exits below the car seems like the safe backup solution. Just need to find time to rig up a longer cable system.

 

If you can figure out how to use the emergency key, here is a solution to the Lithium battery shutoff issue:
Small enough to fit into the glove box and plenty of juice to open the rear hatch.
1. Unlock door with emergency key.
2. Open hood and connect DBPower unit.
3. Open trunk
4. Reset battery

 

So, I finally got around to swapping out batteries. I picked up the Scorpion that I had mentioned earlier, which is actually a motorcycle battery, as well as some post adapters and a pair of post shims. Getting the OEM battery out was interesting, but then fitting the smaller lithium battery was a challenge as well, since my battery didn't come with a purpose built tray. In the end, I sandwiched some styrofoam between the battery and the factory tie-down. Slapped it around a little bit to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere, then I was off to the races.

As previously mentioned, I'd used this battery on a Honda S2000 with good results, but I was a little worried about all of Jaguar's electrical doo-dads working properly. It's been a little over two weeks and so far so good. The car starts right up, I have no CELs, and all electrical components seem to be functioning properly.

I weighed my OEM battery and it came out to about 58lbs., whereas this Scorpion battery is a hair under 4lbs.

 

 

Be careful you may grow a stinger tail;}

 

Not sure, I haven't had it on recently, I'll have to check.

Wat

 

Wat[/QUOTE]

I corrected my misspelling. You can ignore. Too much caffeine today.

 

I corrected my misspelling. You can ignore. Too much caffeine today.[/QUOTE]
Hahaha, me too. Makes sense now, I hope this battery swap doesn't come back to sting me!

 

Hi there

So I got a conditioner / charger for my lipo RS30 battery.
After a charge it shows full charge, 4 blue lights.

But I notice after a day the battery is back to 2/3 lights, has anyone else done a charge, if so does yours drop back to 2/3 blue lights after a day or so?

Just wondering if this is normal or mine has an issue. Apart from that no issues and even with car stood for two weeks it still started fine, so all seems well.