Main Battery Upgrade to Lithium

Anyone upgrade Lead Acid main Battery with a Lithium (LiFePO4) on an LR4 (I have 2012)?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Check this out ..

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

djkaosone

'11 LR4 HSE LUX 5.0L V8
Joined
Oct 26, 2015
Posts
1,089
Reaction score
756
Location
SoCal
@powershift I have the MT45 platinum and I absolutely love it. Get the transit bag for thermal efficiency and reduced power loads.
 

powershift

Full Access Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2023
Posts
786
Reaction score
235
Location
Nevada
@powershift I have the MT45 platinum and I absolutely love it. Get the transit bag for thermal efficiency and reduced power loads.
The cover sounds good, I'd like to try it out. Last summer in the Mohave the ambient temperature was so hot in the shade that I couldn't sit on it or it would burn my legs and azz lol. That is probably the only con to being metal besides weight, but metal was my first pick. I've got 29 lbs of tri-tip in it now.
 

drivesafe

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Posts
95
Reaction score
18
Hi folks and first off, I make the Traxide Isolators, but other than to point out that no other system recharges your batteries quicker that a Traxide isolator, and I’ll leave it at that.

You should NEVER use a lithium battery as a cranking battery in ANY vehicle as there is huge cost if the battery shuts down whiled you are driving.

If for any reason the lithium battery shuts down while the motor is running, if you are lucky, you will only be up for a new alternator, but if the alternator regulator does not fail straightaway, then you will be up for many thousands of dollars in replacing the vehicles electronics.

When a lithium battery shuts down, or fails, it goes OPEN CIRCUIT, which means it is no longer suppressing the voltage spikes put out by your alternator and these can be spikes of up to 400v.

No vehicle electronics can sustain that sort of voltage.

Whereas, when a lead acid battery fails, be it a wet cell or AGM, the battery even though it is stuffed, it is still in circuit and continues to act as a massive voltage spike suppressor.

If you think this is not the case, then checkout the different boating forums where many of them have been using lithium batteries as cranking batteries and they have had huge repair/replacement costs because their lithium cranking battery has shutdown while the motor was running.

As for lithium auxiliary batteries, they have some well advertised advantages but few know of the disadvantages, such as taking up to 6 times longer to recharge than a Traxide setup can do.

Plus, if you do remote driving, unless you fit a Drop-In ( cranking type ) lithium battery as your auxiliary, if you are off in the Never-Never and your lead acid cranking battery fails, most lithium batteries will not start your motor and in many cases, just trying to start the motor with a standard lithium battery can stuff the battery, but still will not start your motor.

It’s amazing how the sellers of lithium batteries FOGET too mention these little drawbacks.
 

powershift

Full Access Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2023
Posts
786
Reaction score
235
Location
Nevada
Hi folks and first off, I make the Traxide Isolators, but other than to point out that no other system recharges your batteries quicker that a Traxide isolator, and I’ll leave it at that.

You should NEVER use a lithium battery as a cranking battery in ANY vehicle as there is huge cost if the battery shuts down whiled you are driving.

If for any reason the lithium battery shuts down while the motor is running, if you are lucky, you will only be up for a new alternator, but if the alternator regulator does not fail straightaway, then you will be up for many thousands of dollars in replacing the vehicles electronics.

When a lithium battery shuts down, or fails, it goes OPEN CIRCUIT, which means it is no longer suppressing the voltage spikes put out by your alternator and these can be spikes of up to 400v.

No vehicle electronics can sustain that sort of voltage.

Whereas, when a lead acid battery fails, be it a wet cell or AGM, the battery even though it is stuffed, it is still in circuit and continues to act as a massive voltage spike suppressor.

If you think this is not the case, then checkout the different boating forums where many of them have been using lithium batteries as cranking batteries and they have had huge repair/replacement costs because their lithium cranking battery has shutdown while the motor was running.

As for lithium auxiliary batteries, they have some well advertised advantages but few know of the disadvantages, such as taking up to 6 times longer to recharge than a Traxide setup can do.

Plus, if you do remote driving, unless you fit a Drop-In ( cranking type ) lithium battery as your auxiliary, if you are off in the Never-Never and your lead acid cranking battery fails, most lithium batteries will not start your motor and in many cases, just trying to start the motor with a standard lithium battery can stuff the battery, but still will not start your motor.

It’s amazing how the sellers of lithium batteries FOGET too mention these little drawbacks.
I agree that Lithium isn't the right chemistry for the starter battery, but I've driven plenty of vehicles including a Volt, with no starter battery. There has been zero impact. I'm tempted to start my rig now and pull the battery terminal, but every other vehicle where I had a need to drive w/out a 12V starter battery or a dead battery, didn't have an issue.
 

drivesafe

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Posts
95
Reaction score
18
That's known as Russian Roulette and do as you like, but there is not only evidence that this is happening in the boating industry, but a few Caravan sites have stated the same has happened.

It is a case of each unto his own!

Also note, why is it if lithium batteries are so good, that none of the vehicle manufacturers use them as cranking batteries.

Porsche did offer a 40Ah cranking battery as a $4500 optional feature, but even that was connected via a bus harness to the vehicles electronics, for monitoring and my GUESS is if the battery looked like failing, the motor was shut down first.

Even the hybrids, with a bank of lithium main batteries, use a lead acid battery as the starting battery for their motors?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Apr 28, 2025
Posts
5
Reaction score
0
Location
Morro Bay CA
I completed my dual battery setup. I had to deviate from the posted method of putting the ECU in a protected case under the brake lines. Instead I attached the horn to another bolt farther back and tucked the control module still under the brake lines but in its original case. I then repurposed the ECU protective seath to house my Victron DC-DC charger to then use the AGM battery to charge the Lithium 135Ah accessory battery.

I have a G3 GAP IIDX BT diagnostic tool and cleared the faults, but I'm still getting a charging system fault even though I went back to the origina OEM ground cable. I tried a different profile using the GAP tool since I went lead acid to AGM.

Anyone familiar with the GAP IID Tool and any programming needed with an AGM upgrade?

A picture for reference.
 

Attachments

  • Dual Battery.png
    Dual Battery.png
    1.2 MB · Views: 3

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
36,733
Posts
222,892
Members
30,906
Latest member
Paul p
Top