Car battery

[Fredxx]

Quite clearly, like so many other things you post here on, you simply don't have a clue about lead-acid batteries.

Hanging on something a poster said a number of posts ago is indeed pathetic.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The moment you strap a charger - super or turbo - on an engine, its displacement becomes fairly irrelevant

On natural aspirated engines the only way to get more power is through higher RPM, and that brings problems with engine wear, and breathing requiring multi-valve heads and probably variable cam timing.

Eventually the complexity is worse than strapping a turbo on, and then all you have to do is ensure the engine can stand the combustion pressures and the torque.

50hp/litre is a decent cheap engine that is probably economical. Race tune it and 100bhp/litre is possible. Strap a turbo on and 100bhp/litre is a doddle.

It may feel bad to drive though...so 6-8 speed auto boxes and variable vane or twin turbos help to keep it in/extend its power band

[Rod Speed]

Easy to claim. In fact I used to charge a collection of them as part of my job when they were used to power lag experiments at uni for the lab students in the days before it economic to use power supplys instead with very crude chargers, back in the early 60s.

You are pathetic.

[Andrew]

Until you went downhill a tad too fast and the excess voltage blew all your bulbs (just before you approached a bend or pothole). :-(

[Paul]

I have one of those bottle dynamos right now on a bicycle, and it's running LED arrays. The difference with LEDs, is they don't burn out on a hill (LEDs are running at 50% rating).

A full wave bridge rectifier and some capacitors, converts the AC from the bottle dynamo, to the DC the LEDs need. There are a few little details. The caps are ceramic, and have no legs on them to bust off. Which is one reason the circuit still works, three years later. Each tiny LED has a 15 degree lens on the front, to pitch the light forward. No overall optics are needed as a result (no reflectors or big magnifying glass things).

Paul

[Tim Lamb]

For those that have been concerned. The battery change happened this afternoon. No excitement other than having to raid a 12V battery from the mower to maintain the supply. VW have considerately provided exposed connection points close to the main battery position (battery earth to bodywork and the positive connection to the fuse array)

[Animal]

It was getting boiled by the charging system. Lack of firewall means the fumes enter the vehicle interior.

[Animal]

In the 60s chargers were very crude, most operators knew little about charging lead acids, and many got trashed by bad charging.

[Bob Eager]

My new car has the battery in a compartment in the 'boot' (it's a hatchback).

[alan_m]

My petrol 1 litre Ford engine is 125bhp (turbo).

Or it may be quite nice to drive, manual gearbox.

[charles]

just like the original Mini

[Bob Eager]

My petrol Ford engine (2 weeks old) is 2.5 litre, 187bhp...

[Bob Eager]

Not quite; at least there the battery was *in* the boot, not effectively open to the passenger compartment.

And with the Mini, it was to add weight to the back end; in my case, there's no space at the front!

[Chris Green]

I think it's not all that uncommon to have the battery somewhere at the back of the car, it helps with weight distribution among other things. Our Citroen C6 has the battery in a compartment at the side of the boot.

[Joe]

A friend of mine had an early mini, where the starter control was not in the ignition switch, but was a heavy duty push-button switch in the floor, directly in the battery cable. he had a new Mini carpet fitted, but for the later version and it did not have a cutout over the button, so he placed a draught-piece on the button to raise it a quarter of an inch, and did not make a hole for it.

Only someone who knew where the old mini starter button was could get it started. An additional layer of anti-theft protection.

[The Natural Philosopher]

My diesel (Jaguar) engine (14 years old) is 3.0 litre, 270 bhp...

As I said, once you strap a turbo (or two) on, displacement ceases to be a limiting factor.

[Davey]

You mean a REAL Mini.

[charles]

It was in the estate car (traveller) variant

There wasn't any room under the bonney either in a Mini.

[charles]

Yes.

[SteveW]

I must get in touch with one of my friends and see where he has got up to with his Mini - it was produced about 3 months after production started and was in pretty good nick when I last saw it.