Hello, I am planning on replacing and relocating my battery to the spare tire well. Do you think this is a good place for it? I am concidering either a Braille or an Odyssey battery. Whats the least amperage I can get away with? Anyone have experience with any of these? Which make/model would you recommend and where to order them from? Thank you!

 

Unless you have a pure race car then those batteries are a bad choice. I would stick with a normal optima or westco miata battery.

 

I've done the PC680 battery before and its nice and light, but lacks the cold crank amps to start the car when its cold out. If your looking for a smaller battery check out the Honda sized 51R battery. I have switched over and I have never had any starting issues since.

 

Optima red top is the best choice for a street car.

 

I don't get the point of relocating the battery to the spare tire well. Just get a smaller battery like the rotary extreme kit if your looking to save space. Hell, companies such as neukin sell lithium ion batteries that are smaller than a sandwich. Even with a huge vmount, I still have room in my engine bay.

 

It's not just about the space under the hood. I've done a lot more weight reduction in the back compared to the front. I would like to normalize my weight distribution.

 

I've been running a Yausa YTX20HL in my corolla for about 2 years, and it's awesome and pretty cheap. 310 CCAs and 12 lbs... starts it up in the middle of winter after it's been sitting for months, can't really ask for more. It's the OEM battery in 1.8L Honda goldwings...

I recently got a Yausa YTX24HL for my FC to replace my yellow top optima... 14 lbs w/ 350 CCAs, hopefully it'll do the job. I weighed both it and my yellow top and it's over 30 lbs lighter...

an odyssey PC680 only has 170 CCA... and weighs 15 lbs... and costs 3 times as much.

that being said, I have not had very good experiences with newer Optimas... the last one I bought lasted less than a year.

 

you have to select the right optima for the job.. red top for daily user..

 

I have had two Optima redtops and both performed exceptionally well (current one, five years old, is still performing).
However, I've been reading on other forums that the newer Optimas have a real problem with not recovering from a deep discharge and Optima has even released a specific charger meant to combat the problem.

I have no real info beyond this and have never had a "flatlining" issue with my daily drivers, so I offer the news merely as a warning.

 

the yellow top I'm replacing in my FC is 10 years old and still does OK.... just too heavy. (46 lbs.)

the red top I had in my subaru died in less than a year... the guy at the parts store actively tries to convince people not to buy recent optimas because they have so many failures. not sure what changed.

 

reds are configured for cranking.. and to be used in a daily user where the alt takes over and provides the power for ancillaries...
its designed to crank like hell .. and work with a charging system that can handle the job of the ancillaries ( shallow discharge )
as a result it is not designed to be dragged low repeatedly .. its built for sharp fast cranking draw.
..FC's with dodgy wired alt and overnight trickle that park up for more than a few days at a time will need a switch to isolate the battery

yellows are for deep cycle.. ie drag cars with no or insufficient alt.. or suv with winch .. or a big entertainment system that will drag the battery low repeatedly
-- it is designed to be abused and dragged low yet still recover ( deep cycle discharge ) .. its built for long slow overdraw and starting power is only average
this makes a better candidate for something you park up un-isolated for long times with a slow parasitic draw of an alarm or faulty alt wiring

blues is for marine and come in dark grey or light grey case
.. dark is cranking ( shallow discharge )
while light grey/blue is multipurpose deep discharge


if your alt wiring is sorted and big enough for the car.. and you use it everyday
.. then a red top is the correct option as allows you to choose a smaller size with comparable cold cranking amps to larger yellow
-- or allows you to use the same size ,, from a remote location ( like rear of FC ) .. without suffering from a slow crank... i have 800-1000 cca to start a ported FC with a mixer LPG fuel system .. fires straight up .. and works much better than the dual 440 cca battery system i had before

 

the optima's are actually getting hard to come by here, the retailers are beginning not to carry them. i've never owned one, but my friends had three of them, and none of the three lasted a year.

i did run a PC680 in the FC, and if you have something that starts right up, they do ok, but there's no margin if your map isn't right, or something.

and for that matter, my friends used to run lawnmower batteries, cheap, light, and they work just as well as the PC680, and you can buy em anywhere for like $30

the 51R, or Miata size battery is a pretty hassle free choice too

 

^^ i can second that, ive used both. I will ad tho, that i got quite a lot of cranking time out of the pc680 without much voltage drop when we couldnt figure out why the car wasnt starting once(unrelated problem, sorted now).
I had another pc680 before that which i killed. Drained it once, and after that it never held a charge, so keep that in mind.
I used a lawnmower batttery that was the same physical size as the pc680 after that. It worked great at first but was useless after a couple of yearsof weekend use.

 

I've been hearing in other places that since Johnson Control bought out Optima, they cut down on the R&D staff, mainstreamed the internal design, and moved the manufacturing to coincide with the rest of JC's product lines all of which resulted in the performance and quality of Optimas to go downhill. Braille seems to hold the better reputation now.

 

I had one of those little batteries in my FC. A Deka ETX16L which is essentially what Braille re-badges and sells for 3x the price.

With the car sitting for a few days, the security system draws it down just enough that it will not fire up on a cold day (50 or below).

After two jumps from AAA I got fed up with it and went to a Deka Intimidator full sized AGM sealed battery. It fits in the passenger side storage bin area. Problems solved.

 

I'd go for the Odyssey if it's a track car. Other than that I have ALWAYS used a bluetop Optima. Red's have for me always end up dead in a few months.

 

My red tops have never felt like 46 pounds... Mine have always tested at 1100 CCA actually. and are only rated at about 800 CCA. My las one lasted 3 years and would have kept going, but I had a few days left on my free replacement warrenty so I swapped it out after My alternator died. I drove the car for 60 minutes with no alternator and drained it down to 250 CCA. The parts store did a fat charge on it and it only charged to 300 CCA so they thought it was dead. I didn't have the heart to tell them they charged it wrong and it was fine since I got a free new one, lol.

You have to piggy back it to a standard battery and slow charge it for at least 24 hours to charge properly.

 

red tops are lighter than yellow tops... but not by much.

 

I'm going to chime in on this conversation. I too am looking for a small sized battery to fit in the back. My reason is because the engine setup I am going with won't allow space under the hood and I don't want to put any holes in the back compartments. Now I heard of people using lithium ion batteries, what's the word on that for a vehicle?

 

IM in the market for a battery myself.

I also planned on moving from pass bin to spare tire locating for weight distribution.

Looking for something lighter,more compact, and a lot of CCA's as my car had a haltech. Haltechs might have a start delay for priming or something because ignition only sparks after the motor turns a few times. It also has to be able to deflood and start the car. <-- never know. haha

 

exide orbital, light and powerful for a full size


40 month free replacement / 108 month limited
750 cold cranking amps - up to 80 minutes of reserve capacity
about 38lbs

 

Optimas are still very heavy. And from what people are saying about the new ones being of lower quality I don't see a justiication for replacing my current Costco unit with it. I'm gonna give the Yuasa a shot. It's specs look good for $100.

 

Just for kicks, I found an Optima YellowTop that has a width of 5 1/16. This should fit well in the s[are tire well, if so desired, when laid on its side. Not sure how deep the FC spare tire well is, but my FD is about 5.5"- 6" deep. *Optima 8071-167 D51 YellowTop*

OPTIMA® Batteries 8071-167 D51 YELLOWTOP® Starting & Deep-Cycle Battery :: OPTIMA® Batteries

 

FC's spare tire wells are all the way in the back and sit flush between the 2 lights standing upright. not really the ideal place to put something heavy.

that battery costs twice as much as a Yuasa YTX24HL, weighs 12 more lbs, and only has 100 more CCA... *shrug*

 

If "weight distribution" is the goal, seems like the passenger bin is actually the best place for the battery.
It's low, central to the mass of the car, helps offset the weight of the driver and is well protected.