Shorai battery

[oldnortonrider]

(?)~Has anybody tried one of the Shorai batteries on the XS11 yet?

...........thinking about getting one.........

I have a theory that the extra "juice" might eliminate some of the contrariness of the starter clutch not wanting to be so easily engaged.

........thinking...................

[crazy steve]

Yep, one member did here, although not in an XS. Had a bit of a mishap with it...
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...ghlight=shorai

[oldnortonrider]

Yes; I had researched that thread.............

[cywelchjr]

As I recall, his thoughts were that the need to stable charging on that battery would not be met by the XS charging system. To add to that, I'm pretty sure that the battery voltage and such has nothing to do with how the starter clutch works, that's all about design and condition of the clutch along with the oil in use. The starter clutch can be as picky on these things as the main clutch can be, but one member here has looked at the wear patterns on the starter clutch as has seen some design problems that may be causing the problems many are seeing, but hasn't come up with a way to fix it yet, and they are really hard to find NOS, and used ones are usually not much if any better than the one you have in your engine already.

[James England]

I think that battery is a Lithium-Ion one? If so, I wouldn't ever risk putting one on my bike. I have an electric bicycle which runs on Li-Ion and they are notorious for overheating when charging, exploding and catching fire. The Li-Ion charging system is very specific to that type of battery, with a start-up, plateau level, and cool down period. I can't imagine that it's ideal for an older motorbike. Only a month or two ago, the Li-Ion battery from my electric drill melted in the charger and was a charred lump next morning. I was lucky it didn;t catch fire as it was in the XS1100 garage! Needless to say, I now isolate the electricity in that building at night.

IMO it will make no difference whatsoever to the starter clutch. For a while, in -15 degree temperatures here (rare) my starter just whizzed round, even on a well charged battery in good condition.

Looking at the pix of the bike on fire, I think he was lucky not to have lost it completely.

Lead-acid battery technology is old, incredibly well tested and very reliable. Li-Ion, Ni-Cd and Magnesium are all new-ish and, IMO, a waste of money on XS1100's. They're bad enough in electric bicycles and beed to be discharged completely on a regular basis. They don't last as long as lead-acid either....

[DAVINCI]

As I recall, his thoughts were that the need to stable charging on that battery would not be met by the XS charging system. To add to that, I'm pretty sure that the battery voltage and such has nothing to do with how the starter clutch works, that's all about design and condition of the clutch along with the oil in use. The starter clutch can be as picky on these things as the main clutch can be, but one member here has looked at the wear patterns on the starter clutch as has seen some design problems that may be causing the problems many are seeing, but hasn't come up with a way to fix it yet, and they are really hard to find NOS, and used ones are usually not much if any better than the one you have in your engine already.

The issues Cy is talking about are these:

The rollers get cocked and wear grooves into the 'walls' for lack of a better term. The more this happens, the worse the grooves get until eventually the rollers get caught sometimes.





One side of the clutch is free, so it can be polished to remove the grooves. The other side, however, is swaged and inaccessible That's where we're stuck for a remedy.

[cywelchjr]

I knew Randy would speak up on the issue, since he had to deal with it and split his cases TWICE to fix his FUBARed starter clutch. Fortunately the second time he had gotten a nice NOS unit to install.

[crazy steve]

...The other side, however, is swaged and inaccessible That's where we're stuck for a remedy.

Could that be chucked into a lathe and turn the swaging off to get it out? I would think you could always get that back in, either by welding or some counter-sunk screws...

[cywelchjr]

It's being looked into by a machinist that is a member of both sites, but we haven't had an update from him on it in a while. He wasn't sure if it could even be done, because of the stresses and such, but was looking more at the possibility of creating a new replacement part since the are NLA and a lot more of them are going to be failing here, I know that mine acts up when it get cold. Maybe John is quietly watching and will chime in on this, but I know he just got a job recently so he might not have much time to get onto the sites right now, I know he missed banned camp because of work.

[DAVINCI]

I just sent him a PM to send it back so I can play with it.

[oldnortonrider]

It's being looked into by a machinist that is a member of both sites, but we haven't had an update from him on it in a while. He wasn't sure if it could even be done, because of the stresses and such, but was looking more at the possibility of creating a new replacement part since the are NLA and a lot more of them are going to be failing here, I know that mine acts up when it get cold. Maybe John is quietly watching and will chime in on this, but I know he just got a job recently so he might not have much time to get onto the sites right now, I know he missed banned camp because of work.

I'm going to insert the url/link to those 8 pages of posts having to do with the "maybe-failed-fix-effort" that you're referring to; I'd studied those 78 posts, and doesn't look good; not encouraging ~~> http://xs11.46.forumer.com/viewtopic...starter+clutch

[oldnortonrider]

Some FAQ's of interest on shoraipower.com ~~>
http://www.shoraipower.com/t-faq.aspx
Of particular interest to me is a chart showing voltage of the battery at different percentages of capacity of charge. Our regular battery is 12.7 volts, if it's "full" charge; 100%. The Shorai doesn't drop down that low, until 10% capacity of charge. And ranges between 13.3-14.34, 90%-100% of charge. I know when my current "standard type" battery is at 12.7 V, versus maybe being at 12.5 V, the machine starts easier, and the starter is "alive" (with a bit more authority) when it slams the starter clutch. Also, one would have to have better spark at "12.7V" versus any lower voltage reading, that would show on the multimeter. In cold, cold weather 12.5V won't provide near the cranking power or spark, that 12.7V or above will do. I use my Greenlee multimeter a lot. "14.34V' or anything above 14V, or even 13.5V, stands to reason, starter is going to kick the starter clutch harder and faster and with more spinning torque=(?)better engagement. T99Ford in one of his posts in the thread telling of his mishap, tells that Shorai told him they had redesigned the battery for "safety" purposes, and the process had reduced cranking performance by a minimal degree. So now those voltage numbers in the aforementioned chart may not apply.
Also, cywelchjr mentions above re "...... stable charging on that battery would not be met by the XS charging system..........." May-be. Bob Jones, RIP, mentions in his book XS ELEVEN HEAVEN, that the charging system of the XS11 is a superior charging system. He had also mentioned same, several times when he had his fabulous website. I have book #161; gosh, I wish he'd gotten book II finished.

[crazy steve]

....the charging system of the XS11 is a superior charging system..

Superior to what? Bob was a bit of an 'enthusiast' and not good at recognizing the XS11 shortfalls...

The only real advantage the XS system has is no wearable moving parts; in terms of efficiency and output, it's really a rather poor design (witnessed by the fact that the XJ got a different charging system) that only puts out 280 watts. And the fact that it doesn't deliver full output until RPMs are up is another strike against it, particularly in this application.

You might have a shot if you installed one of Geezers' 'upgrade' regulators, as that raises output at lower rpms, but whether or not output would stay in the correct 'range' for one of those batteries is hard to say...

[oldnortonrider]

Yes; I'd be in agreement about adding one of Geezer's regulators.

[cywelchjr]

Superior to what? Bob was a bit of an 'enthusiast' and not good at recognizing the XS11 shortfalls...

The only real advantage the XS system has is no wearable moving parts; in terms of efficiency and output, it's really a rather poor design (witnessed by the fact that the XJ got a different charging system) that only puts out 280 watts. And the fact that it doesn't deliver full output until RPMs are up is another strike against it, particularly in this application.

You might have a shot if you installed one of Geezers' 'upgrade' regulators, as that raises output at lower rpms, but whether or not output would stay in the correct 'range' for one of those batteries is hard to say...

I think the low output at low RPM's is true of most MC altternators because of the low speed that they turn being attached to the crankshaft instead of through a pulley system like a car is. The issue as I understand it for the shorai battery is that it needs a pretty stable charging voltage, and these charging systems don't provide that. Lots of highs and lows going on in the system as you increase and decrease engine speed, and in many cases just barely enough capacity to charge the battery.