I did a search and could not find this topic so I am sorry if this is a repost. I found Braille battery company that sells carbon fiber lightweight batteris that will work on our cars.

The smallest model the rep at Braille recommended was the 15lbs model, he did say the best bet for our cars would be the 21lbs model. I figured that I would go for it and buy the 15lbs model. If you are someone who spends a lot of time listening to your stereo while the engine is off this may not be the battery for you, it has a reserve of 20 minutes. Our batteries weigh around 60lbs so this is a cheap way to take some weight off.

http://www.braillebattery.com/

 

a lot of E39 M5 people use this battery.
I think the MB is very dependent on the battery, maybe you should also get a trickle charger.
Weight saving are very good for the price.

 

I think I'll try this 21lb'er thanks for posting
http://www.braillebattery.com/index....tteries/b3121/
No exterior CF but, I'm not really going to ever see it once installed. How will these much smaller batt fit snuggly in bigger OEM mounting location in trunk?

 

Sounds like a good idea! If I'm not mistaken...Juice was running one of these batteries...not sure which one...

My car will be going on a very strict diet in the coming weeks...

 

Battery swapping isn't that hard...right? I think if I was to get one it would be the 21 lbr.

 

yep, not that difficult. but wow. that batter is a total sex. 21 pounds for a batter. nice!

 

I recently purchased the non CF 15 lbs battery from Braile. Yes it works just fine.
One thing I have noticed is if the car sits for more then 1-2 days I would recommend hooking up a battery tender to your car so it keeps its charge. The stock battery can got for a couple weeks without any issues. The braile since it is smaller can only go a few days before cycling so low that you will have trouble starting it.
am running the 15 lbs non CF version and just make a point that when i pull it into the garage I hook the tender straight to the battery to keep it fully charged at all times incase i go on a road trip for a couple days and might need a day inbetween use.
Just something to keep in mind when going to a lightweight battery.
FYI my stocck battery weighs right at 60 lbs, so going to a 15 is really nice

 

I have been through 2 of these on my E55. They are 24 lbs. Looks to be a bit inferior to the Braille 21 lber. Mine went dead after 2-3 days in the cold weather. The PC680 won't work on our cars. Was dead overnight in the garage.

http://www.odysseybatteries.com/battery/pc925.htm

 

I have been running the 11.5 lbs non-carbon fiber Braille battery for about 5 months now. My car does sit for 3-4 days out of the week parked in the garage and starts with no issues. I do get "consumer electronics offline" for about the first 5-15 minutes of driving and then goes away.

BTW, I do have two batteries and the other battery in the engine bay area is considered the "starter" battery, dont know if it is the same as W211.

 

Yo Sal! Did it fit in stock location w/oem fasteners? thanks for your time I'm after the 21lb'er

 

wow did not know this battery is popular for MB. will consider purchasing one.

 

The cats out of the bag now.... Actually Sal mentioned this to me a few times and highly recommended the product.

Hey Sal, give me call. I have a huge favor to ask of you.

 

Guys best light weight battery by far is

www.voltphreaks.com

a 6.5 lb er will run yer car

 

Yeah bro, I'll pm you the details.


No prob, I will most likely call you tomorrow since I have some guest here at my house that I dont care to entertain. I sneak away from time to time to check out the action here on the "world"

 

Wow wish I had heard of these before I bought my heavy Optima, which so far has been great but soooo heavy. How do those Voltphreaks compare to the Brailles? Anybody ever use a Voltphreaks?

 

I wanted to get the VoltFreaks one @ 7.5 lbs, but didnt want to spend $1500. !!! Went with the Brail 15 lbs and just hook a tender up every few days to make sure its all good, but no problems except when it sits and temps drop below 40F for an extended period of time. Strictly a 3 season battery for me. Stock one goes back in for winter months. Still nice to go from 60lbs stock battery to 15 lbs braile for $250. instead of 1500!!!
I personally know a few of the quickest MB's around here are running the same batteries

 

I went for the CF 15lbs battery. I know no one will see it except for me but i have some sort of obsession with carbon fiber. I plan on buying a red AMG sticker and placing it on the side of the battery, hopefully I can get the braille sticker off.

 

Nice. I was gonna get the CF one too, but since noone will ever see it I decided to save a few bucks and get the regular ones. If you ride sits a little from time to time get yourself a battery tender which hooks straight to the battery.

 

Wow you guys are either way more hardcore than me (I've only done mild mods-pulley, ecu, etc), or I don't drive my E55 enough. If I'm toughing out the commute and not leisure driving, I drive my CNG powered beater and fly down the HOV lane with a grin. The E sits, sometimes weeks at a time. The hassle of having to hook up a trickle charger is more than the weight saving is worth to me. Plus, isn't it sorta not-to-bad to have a little extra weight over the rear wheels? I know that a lighter car is always better, but weight transfer is a factor, and I can't drive without lighting up the tc light like a strobe light every time I drive.

Is the weight saving that big a deal, or does the loss of weight over the rear offset somewhat?

Skeeter

 

Well IMO I guess that depends on how you look at it. Some, including myself like going to the track to work on our 1/4 mile times. Every little bit of weight we can shed from our 4200-4300 lbs can mean the difference on a few hundredths of a second or more on our times.
Actually a good tender isnt tough to hook up. Cause the battery are so small, if they sit too long they can cycle down with all the electronics running in our cars at all times. For me when I put my car in the garage an outlet is only a few feet from my trunk. And my tender hooks straight to the battery in the trunk. Takes all of about 30 seconds between getting out of my car, opening my trunk and hooking straight up to the terminals.
In my case without going into a complete list when I first went to the track and sat on the scales my car was tipping almost 4400 lbs with me in it. I have been able to shed about 200 lbs from my car taking stuff out of the car, loosing wheel weight, battery weight(Stock battery 60lbs!!! THis one is 15, so 45 lbs savings right there!!!) and other things which I am not going to totally get into since it the list gets long for those track days.
So now when I get on the scales with me in it, its about 4200 lbs.
At the track I would light up my tires at 4400 lbs and also do at 4200 lbs. Its all about getting your launches right and learning how to get all the power to the wheels without breaking too much traction. So IMO weight transfer isnt all that much different from before, however my times started decreasing as I started to lose more weight from the car. That 200 lbs in my case worked out to almost a half second faster times.
So I would say weight savings is a huge deal, track and street.
During normal temps above 40F with these batteries if you drive every 2-3 days you shouldn't have any trouble having one of these hooked up without using a tender, but since I have 2 other cars I only drive it 2-3 days a week and like to hook the tender up to make sure when i do get in the car I dont come out to a close to dead battery and have trouble starting it.

 

I'm very interested in this battery but have a few concerns on life. At the track I plan on packing my rear reservoir with ice to help cool things down but the problem is that my key needs to be in the "on" position. I've never used it at the track yet but I'm sure it will take at least 15 minutes to get the water temperature where I need it to be. The other downfall is that once I do this my car won't have very much time to charge the battery in between runs, do you guys see this as a problem? Keep in mind I plan on getting the 21 lb. battery.

 

I dont know the answer to this questions since I am N/A. JayCL600 might be able to answer that for you. Or maybe BlackBenzz. Not sure who else is running these batteries. I think they are are on 15lbs though like me. You probably wont have a problem with the 21 though. Maybe somoene else besides me running on of these batteries that hasd a supercharges or turbos can chime in.

 

If you live in the south where it rarely gets cold (AZ/TX/ Socal) you can run PC680s or the like equivalents year round with no problems as long as its your daily driver. For your weekend car, its not recommended, they can lose charge after 5-7 days. They are good down to close to freezing, but if it gets below freezing, they don't hold a charge. Finding the best mount is the biggest issue, some are better than others.

 

Ouch! $1500 is a ton for a battery, can't believe that Braille is only $250, not too bad, especially considering it's made out of CF. And at that point, 7.5 lbs. is not that much of a drop. I wonder how light I could go, considering my car does not have any electronics that stay on, and it's only a 3.4 I6. I wonder if I could get away with the 6.6.... Damn that would be nice, instead of my 50 lb. Optima, plus my car is nose heavy, so this could be a potentially great mod.

 

JEGS is selling the B2015 (15lb non-CF) on ebay for $164.00 including shipping. Ends up about $16.00 less than through Braille's website.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Brail...spagenameZWD1V