battery and alternator recommendations

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Pimenteljoe

CarAudio.com Newbie
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hey guys just a little info here,

I have a 2016 Camaro LT1 3.6L

now my question is this, I would like some feed back and some recommendation for a battery/s and alternator.

please note that I’m in Canada and would like some feed back from my fellow Canadians on this subject as well to.

I know my current alternator only pushes 150 - 180 Amps and I would like 250-300 amps for my current audio system to have clean performance and power.
Also I do know I want to run 2 battery’s with My system, I’m leaning towards the XS Power ones. Unless people here have better recommendations on that. As for the alternator, I here that the best one is made by mech man, but I’ve looked into
It and he dose not make one for the 2016 Camaro and also he dose not ship to Canada.
So with that that being said, please help me here on this community and give me all the best recommendations and experiences that best fit my car.
 
Check out “Tucson alternator” I have an impala w the 3.6 and they make them for it. Not sure if they ship to Canada. Maybe worth a call.
 
Where are you planning on putting your second battery? If you are willing to relocate your battery to your trunk, I would seriously consider running a bank of Lithium instead of getting 2 AGM batteries.

I'm running a stock alternator (90-120a) with 80ah of Yinlong LTO cells and my voltage stays rock solid with a taramps Smart 5 and an audison APF8.9 Bit.

If you go with LTO you will need to delete your front battery, but you can also run LiFeP04 cells and keep your front battery.

Matt
 
What he said 👆

I have the traditional Mechman high amp alt and am installing multiple AGMs, but if I was going to go beyond 5k watts I'd probably do a battery delete and go with a massive LiFeP04 bank. Something no one mentions about Mechman alts is that they produce >15V at cold idle and high 14's even when warm. This is a problem for going with Lithium. I'd have to call up Mechman and talk about voltage regulation to make the change.

To give an example, my SFB 5K is stable up to 15.5V and once in a blue moon the clip light comes on when I crank the Tahoe, which I interpret to mean that it very briefly receives >15.5V. That's real bad for most 12V Li banks and conversely not enough to properly charge a 14V bank.
 
What he said 👆

I have the traditional Mechman high amp alt and am installing multiple AGMs, but if I was going to go beyond 5k watts I'd probably do a battery delete and go with a massive LiFeP04 bank. Something no one mentions about Mechman alts is that they produce >15V at cold idle and high 14's even when warm. This is a problem for going with Lithium. I'd have to call up Mechman and talk about voltage regulation to make the change.

To give an example, my SFB 5K is stable up to 15.5V and once in a blue moon the clip light comes on when I crank the Tahoe, which I interpret to mean that it very briefly receives >15.5V. That's real bad for most 12V Li banks and conversely not enough to properly charge a 14V bank.

15.5v is fine for a 6s LTO bank. They can charge up to 16ish volts I believe. LiFeP04 doesn't like above aboit 14.8 or so but mech an can lower or raise the charge voltage. I'm running a 6s LTO bank and only charging at 14.4. Technically I'm only getting about 70-80 percent capacity out of it, but my voltage hardly moves even at a soft clip.

Matt
 
15.5v is fine for a 6s LTO bank. They can charge up to 16ish volts I believe. LiFeP04 doesn't like above aboit 14.8 or so but mech an can lower or raise the charge voltage. I'm running a 6s LTO bank and only charging at 14.4. Technically I'm only getting about 70-80 percent capacity out of it, but my voltage hardly moves even at a soft clip.

Matt

Talked to Limitless and they said 15.5V at cold start is OK as long as you warm up to around 14.8 within a few minutes (he said it's OK if it touches 15 but should average 14.8, basically). Threw one of those free down4sound volt meters on the battery and watched it last night, sure enough it gets to 14.8ish after warmup but does oscillate between 14.6 and 15. Seems like LiFePO4 should probably work but it's kind of iffy to me. These are expensive batteries to smoke because you decide to risk it.

Was thinking about going with a Cyber 12k for a while but there's talk that they really don't support anywhere near 12k. Better than a spare AGM, sure, but not near 12k.

LTO is definitely the better choice from a technical standpoint - better C ratings, longer life, tolerates low charge, etc. The issue here is that I don't really want to do a battery delete so LiFePO4 has the "plug and play" advantage. I thought about going with a 16V LTO but my concern there is that I'll never be charging it properly and that might not be good for it. I know LTO is supposed to be fine going from 0 to 100% charge but still. And for 12V LTO my charging voltage is problematic.

It's a shame you can't just use an isolator with AGM and LTO.
 
Talked to Limitless and they said 15.5V at cold start is OK as long as you warm up to around 14.8 within a few minutes (he said it's OK if it touches 15 but should average 14.8, basically). Threw one of those free down4sound volt meters on the battery and watched it last night, sure enough it gets to 14.8ish after warmup but does oscillate between 14.6 and 15. Seems like LiFePO4 should probably work but it's kind of iffy to me. These are expensive batteries to smoke because you decide to risk it.

Was thinking about going with a Cyber 12k for a while but there's talk that they really don't support anywhere near 12k. Better than a spare AGM, sure, but not near 12k.

LTO is definitely the better choice from a technical standpoint - better C ratings, longer life, tolerates low charge, etc. The issue here is that I don't really want to do a battery delete so LiFePO4 has the "plug and play" advantage. I thought about going with a 16V LTO but my concern there is that I'll never be charging it properly and that might not be good for it. I know LTO is supposed to be fine going from 0 to 100% charge but still. And for 12V LTO my charging voltage is problematic.

It's a shame you can't just use an isolator with AGM and LTO.

I'm not an expert on Lithium by any means. All I can say is I've played my system for about 2 hours at about half volume(20/36 on the headunit) while doing yard cleanup after the hurricanes, jumped a lawnmower and a Honda civic, and still started my car better than any AGM I've used. I'll never go back to AGM for my cars that have a system. I'll battery delete and run my Yinlongs in the trunk.

Matt
 
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