16 volt charging?

[Dirt Racer N. C.]

Can you charge 16 volt battery using a standard 12 volt charger? What happens if you have a 12 volt alternator and used a 16 volt battery?

[Egoracing]

Can you charge 16 volt battery using a standard 12 volt charger? What happens if you have a 12 volt alternator and used a 16 volt battery?

An alternator runs about 14.5 volts or so, if you used a regular alt then that is all the voltage you will have. Same with the charger, just like putting a 6 volt charger on a 12 v battery, when it is charged it will not have full capacity and will only have 6 volts or so.

[racin6mod]

I run an alternater I have never understood why you would need 16 volts. it seems to me if ther was an advantage to having 16 volts the nascar teams would be using this set up they run hundreds of miles with a 12 volt system. I know the idea was to start with 16 and it may drop to around 12 by the end of the race but the coils and the pickups in the distr. are designed to work with a 12 volt max seems risk vs reward may no be worth the trouble/cost.

[dirty white boy]

never burnt up anything electric running high volts,..but sure burnt up lotta stuff running low... 16 volts to a spark plug will burn more fuel than 12....its bout wringing every bit of potential outta a motor!

[perfconn]

Sparkplugs have over 40,000 volts to them.

[turner]

We tested an Hei with an alternator and without, and it made more power with it. We tested an msd with and without and didnt see a difference.

[Racer111]

Starters seem to last longer with a 16v car sure starts better with 16v.

[sj valley dave]

Sparkplugs have over 40,000 volts to them.

So true The coil puts out the voltage it was designed to do...Doesn't make any more spark running a 16 volt source than a 12 volt...I think people that are using 16 volts is to excite the MSD box and are not running alternators, which the Cup cars do run...They could not run 500 miles with out one with all the blowers and crap they run...

[Egoracing]

If you check the battery after a night of typical saturday night racing you may be suprised. 5 lap practice, 8 lap heat race and 25 lap feature with NO cautions then load test the battery. Just because when you put a meter on them they are at 12 volts does not mean your battery is still good. With a load test I have seen less than 11 volts on a battery. Now put the car on the dyno and do the same test and at the end of a night of racing you can EASILY be down 20hp due to spark loss, running an MSD and guage lights only.

[andy16]

ego is right i load test batteries almost every day... tipical loading is 100 amps draw for five seconds if it stays above 10.5v the battery is good if the battery isn good it drops drastically but like he says they all usually check 12v w a multimeter. you guys w a trolling motor know what im talking about