Lightweight battery that works in freezing temperatures

I'm looking for a new battery for my Evo X. I figure I can shed some weight with a lightweight battery, but since the Evo needs to start in the winter I need to make sure any new battery can still crank over in below freezing (and occasional sub-zero) weather. Does anyone here know of a lightweight battery that's up to the task?

The stock battery is a group 35. A quick Googling shows typical group 35 batteries weigh about 40 lb.

An Ohm battery would do the job, but it's not for sale yet.

www.getohm.com

A Deka ETX14 will start an Evo X and it's supposed to be good in the cold:

http://www.amazon.com/Deka-Sports-Power-ETX14-Battery/dp/B0026H81CO

I ran odyessy batteries in my last two cars.. while it never got into minus numbers, my cars always started even in single digits

IMHO, lightweight batteries are for race cars, where if it doesn't start you've got lots of support equipment around you. Cars that drive in the real world need batteries with lots of reserve capacity.

my Odyssey lasted 7 yrs (12 #) and it started whenever I asked it to all yr round, except for the last 2-3 yrs, when I'd have to take it inside, but I wasn't using the car in the winter during that time ...

prior to that, it worked fine in cold weather

GameboyRMH wrote: An Ohm battery would do the job, but it's not for sale yet. www.getohm.com A Deka ETX14 will start an Evo X and it's supposed to be good in the cold: http://www.amazon.com/Deka-Sports-Power-ETX14-Battery/dp/B0026H81CO

A supercapacitor battery will never see DOT approval, it's nothing but a great way to die. Capacitors are not safe as a primary power source due to dead short potential.

Large motorcycle battery (10 aH+), positive terminal bolted DIRECTLY through a 2" long, 1" wide .060" aluminum strap to the solenoid positive, negative terminal bolted DIRECTLY through a 2" long, 1" wide .060" aluminum strap to the engine or gearbox case. Run rest-of-vehicle power and ground through those terminals.

I'm inclined to agree with codrus, you want the battery in a winter car to be dead reliable. A big heavy lead acid is how you do that. As I recall, the lithium batteries don't like extreme cold.

I can confirm that an ETX14 worked in the winter, but I wouldn't rely on it. It got some Battery Tender lovin' when I didn't drive it for a few days of -30°C.

When it did work, the car would fire on the first crank as opposed to the third or fourth like you'd see with other batteries, though, which was neat.

FWIW, AGMs seem to be a lot stouter in my climate than lead-acids in my experience. 10 year lifetime vs. ~6.

I would consider an ETX14 and a battery blanket combination if you park near power.

BrokenYugo wrote: I'm inclined to agree with codrus, you want the battery in a winter car to be dead reliable. A big heavy lead acid is how you do that. As I recall, the lithium batteries don't like extreme cold.

Even lead-acid doesn't like the cold, the difference is that it's cheap, so you can get a battery with excess capacity and it doesn't make it prohibitively expensive. Lithium ion batteries the core chemistry is expensive, so manufacturers are trying to optimize on capacity. Being "lightweight" also pushes towards having less capacity.

I've been a big fan of Optima yellow-top batteries. I know some people have said that when they switched the plant to Mexico the quality went downhill, but that hasn't been my experience. The newer ones I've bought have all been just fine so far.

From what I've read about the Optima quality issues, they had a bad period, but the newer ones seem to be better again. AGMs (still lead-acid) are definitely a step up from a wet cell battery, in most cases.

After being burned so badly by Optima on dozens of customer batteries, I'm never putting one of those things in a car again. Massive failure rates. We stopped selling them a couple of years ago because we're not stupid. I think I have one that's still working in my cars.

Odyssey, on the other hand, impresses me.

For the Evo, go with a lightweight battery like a PC680 and throw one of these in the glovebox. And if the car's hard to start in the cold, fix your tune

Ditto on the ETX14 down to freezing or just below. Not sure how it does below that, usually sat on tender once it was that cold.

Keith Tanner wrote: And if the car's hard to start in the cold, fix your tune

Agreed on the tune thing. With a good tune, provided no huge cams are involved, it's not too hard to get a port injected motor to light off. I've gotten the Jeep started with a battery so weak it barely spun the motor at all. Still fired on the 3rd or 4th compression stroke, despite turning over so slowly it sounded completely hopeless.

I always thought it was funny.. back when I was more into the "tuner" scene.. I used to get looked down on for my choice in Odyssey batteries instead of Optima.

Cheap and light, lawn tractor battery. But that might not work when it is really cold.

When it is cold you want the biggest battery possible, or some external support, cable to connect to a charger or something. But really will removing 20 pounds matter in a street car...??