With all the battery and system shenanigans, has anyone tried a lithium replacement battery? Definitely expensive (but longer life helps make up for that). And some have internal systems to prevent excess draw-down. And many have power options, including some very large amp-hours.

 

I think the conversion has issues; lifepo4 is not a starter.battery as it has a bms to manage charging and cell balancing. Also the lifepo4 is a low impedance battery which might tax the alternator windings and blocking diodes. A lighter weight battery for sure, though i will skip trying one myself.

 

I’ve read but not confirmed that Lithium batteries need special charger characteristics, and apparently don’t like cold temperatures.

that makes me a little skittish about anything above and beyond lead acid or AGM

 

I looked into it, as I was really curious about Antigravity car batteries (80Ah of Lithium battery is an equivalent of roughly 120-130Ah of AGM battery if you compare actual usable capacity), but decided against it and went with 95Ah H8 AGM battery.
The main concern is the truck BMS that is not meant/capable of properly handling Lithium batteries - Forscan shows only profiles for AGM and flood. In theory, you could disable truck's BMS and rely on Antigravity battery built-in one, BUT I do not know how safe is it, will it cause any truck issues, or how safe it is for the new battery, etc.
What also does not inspire confidence is that Antigravity does not list F150 as a supported vehicle for any of their batteries...
There are very view automotive Lithium battery brands, and there is very little known about those guys/their products.

 

Given the battery location, I feel like replacing the main battery with a lithium based one is asking for a car fire in an accident. It's right at the front of the truck, anything more than a fender bender in the passenger side corner is likely to bust open the battery and potentially start a fire.

 

"iF IT AIN'T BROKE...." Also don't know how Ford would react to a different spec battery in the mix. If you have any electronic or electrical gremlins, Ford might claim you voided warranty by using non approved parts. Just a thought..

 

Not so worried about fire (if you got to the point that your battery is crashed, then you probably have bigger problems, plus that battery is different chemistry from the explosive ones, and the amount of lithium is not that large), but combination of BMS, Ford (already existing) gremlins, etc,. do not favor Lithium battery upgrade.
Keep in mind that there are 2 12v batteries in our trucks - the aux one under the back seat... it will not be a good idea to have 2 batteries of completely different chemistry - and that means upgrading aux battery to Lithium as well.. not saying it is not possible, but we need a knowledgeable Ford engineer to help us.

FORD: if you are listening, please offer lithium battery option... and find a way to fix these battery drain issues!

 

What Skye said. Plus it would be great if one of the gauges you could select would be a Voltage Meter. In ForScan, there is setting in the IPO Module (specifically, IPC 720-06-01) to turn on the virtual gauges and select BVD (Battery Voltage Display) not Boost also known as BVD - thanks for that Ford. Don't know if that would do anything or what else you'd need or even if it would work on XLT and XL trims that don't have fully digital clusters. Would love to have it though..

 

I have seen where some people are upgrading to H7's and H8's. Apparently the H8 will not fit in a PB truck due to the various modules attached the the battery tray. My truck came with an H6, and, KNOCK ON WOOD, I have not had a single issue with it, which seems to be the battery giving people all of the electrical problems. Though I will likely upgrade to an H7 in the event I need to replace the battery