PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

pawoSD · #1 03-20-2005, 11:22 PM

I noticed a couple months ago when I was at the auto-show here in Grand Rapids, that all of the bigger diesel vehicles on Display had DUAL 100amp batteries in them, such as the Dodge Cummins Pickup, the Chevy DuraMax, the Ford Powerstroke.....and such. They all had two 100amp batteries up front in the engine compartment, from what I could tell by inspecting it, is that they were rigged in parallel, to produce the normal 12.5-13 volts, but with twice the amps. I've heard powerstrokes and Cummins trucks start up, and their starters sound insanely powerful

I've always wondered what advantage it would give on a car such as mine, with a 617, to have a parallel battery setup like that, as it gets real cold here, and in the fall I'll be going up to the edge of canada for school, and I'm still going to need my car, but the chances of having an outlet for the block heater at school are pretty slim, so I was thinking that if I set up a dual battery system like that it'd give me a lot more juice on startup, the glow plugs would get hotter since two batteries would be sharing the load, and the starter would have a whole lot more amps to work with allowing it to crank faster and longer. Mainly I'd like to make the chances of not being able to start it in those conditions very low or non existant. I'll be doing a valve adjustment and stuff before I go there, but I need it to start in temps probably as low on occassion as -10, maybe lower, I hope not. So what boost would a dual/parrallel battery system give?