Being the car fanatic that I am, as well as being broke with time on my hands due to temporary unemployment last winter, I set out to relocate my battery. The stock battery location is placed over the heaviest cornerweight of the FC: the left front. 35-40 pounds could be easily taken off this corner and placed opposite the driver, further back in the car in dead space (bin area) behind the passenger seat. This pic shows my preliminary effort with placing the battery:



I put the fuse block there out of naivety. Thinking the future circuit design through, I realized that the block was anchored in the engine bay by way of the wiring harness. I was not in the mood to tackle a complete wiring harness re-loom so I decided against putting the fuses in the bin.

I posted my plans in the Race Car tech forum and was given advice to build a box around the battery to contain it should I crash, and to keep hydrogen gas out of the passenger compartment where it could be ignited, causing an explosion. A week of foam and fiberglass work later, I had a form-fitted cell made just for the battery:




The bin lid will seal off the box with weatherstripping installed on the top edges of the box.

Fast-forwarding to the present, today, with my paint job finally finished, I started working on installing the new wiring necessary for this relocation. Splicing the stock positive and negative cables was necessary in order to extend them a few feet. They go directly from the battery to the starter, with the positive having a "y" connection allowing a thinner wire to connect to the fuse block, supplying the electrical system with positive curent. The negative cable has a ground tab spliced from the factory which will be bolted to the chassis over bare metal. This pic shows my planned routing:



The wires will pass through holes drilled in the transmission hump using grommets and plastic shielding. This is a shot of the holes:

 

Nice work! Will this be directly underneath the stock left storage bin, so you can just open it up and access the battery? That is my plan if I ever decide to tackle the relocation..

 

I lost the server there for a few minutes. Looks like it took its viagra and is no longer limp so I can continue my story. (The image limit per post makes multiple posts necessary).

$30 of battery wire, splices, plastic shielding, grommets and electrical tape later I began splicing the cables. So how to splice wires you ask? Read on . . .


Splicing is simple. I just cut the wires to length, stripped the insulation about a half inch from the end and laid them out on the workbench with the splice.



Then I slipped the splice over the wires after sanding and cleaning all the metal which would be touching . . .



Then I used vice-grips to smash the splice down hard on the wires.



Then I crushed the splice over and over until it is thoroughly pulverized. Here is a shot of my finished "y" joint on the positive cable.



After all splices were made, I laid the cable out and inserted it in the hump hole with grommet already on it. Once in, I pressed the grommet around the hole with a flat screwdriver. In this shot I was beginning to tape around the plastic shielding.



The shielding is for safety concerns. I imitated my reliable Acura's wiring by taping the entire shielding. This way the wire will have to vibrate through its own insulation, the shielding, electrical tape, and the red paint in order to contact the chassis and cause a fire.

And yes, my plan is to be able to lift the bin lid and have unobstructed top access to the battery.

 

After temporarily installing the carpet to check out how I was going to mount my center armrest and dash console, I decided on a cable route and installed loop hold downs by drilling in the chassis and installing sheet metal screws. I also installed a bolt from below the chassis with a nut to serve as a grounding post for the ground tab on the negative wire.



I needed to drill and die grind holes through the chassis cross member for the cables to pass through, which made some more protection for the wires necessary. So I found some old air pump silencer hose and cut it up to form wrap arounds for the wires. The wrap arounds were secured with zip ties and everything will be permanently installed with silicone sealant.




Looks like this thread won't catch on like my other two because battery relocation is much more boring than painting and bumper making, but I don't care. I want to make the details of battery relocation available to future do-it-yourselfers.

 

All your posts are making me very upset....
So much to do so little money to do it wiht *lol*
Keep up the awsome work man!

- James

 

Great write-up and pics. I have one question though, why not move the battery even farther back, like in front of the passenger side taillight?

 

Thanks guys and Brian, that is an excellent idea. At my last Autocross I saw a nasty old Firebird which was ugly and a pure race machine, all go and no show. It had its battery right where you mentioned, in the most righthand and rearward corner of the car right in front of the tail lights. It beat the crap out of my 88 Integra on the course!

I would have put the battery all the way back there but I wanted to keep the stock battery and limit the length of the wires . . but still it would be very easy to take two six volt motorcycle batteries and wire them in series so that you could get a cheap and slim 12v battery to fit in some dead space back there behind the interior panels. Another idea is to put them in the spare tire recess.

Sorry to hear about your lack of money Psychoblue. Most of my life I was very poor so I know how it feels. Play your cards right and one day you will have enough money to get where you want to go in life; trust me, everything comes back to you.

 

Ive been thinking about relocating my battery for awhile now, just havent got around to it. Using the smaller motorcycle batteries is a good idea, i might try that. But I also have ALOT of other stuff I need/want to do here in the near future. Atlest all of my damage from my wreck is fixed, painted, and buffed, thats one less thing I have to worry about.

 

http://www.misred.com/battery.html

Who needs motorcycle batteries?

 

EXCELLENT!

funny this came up, i was actually just discussing ideas on how to go about relocating the battery to that area!

this will come in handy!

 

Please Please get a fuse back there. get a 150-200 amp fuze and put it on your POS wire near the battery.

where is it grounded too? you can ground it near the battery. don't need to run a ground wire to the front.

where is the Y ? after the firewall? or near the battery?

the eaiser thing to do is to run a cable from battery to starter. then get a 2nd ring on a cable to run from starter to fuse boz.

 

+ battery to starter. 1 gauge
- battery to chassis (ground) 2 " strap
+ alternator to fuse box. stock wire length.
I've added an additional ground from the fuse box to the block. 6 gauge monster cable.
Iv'e had issues with not keeping charge. even though the alt has been rebuilt. it puts out like 12.6 at idle with all the accesories on. i have an e-fan too.
Anyone see a prob with this?

 

it's kinda low...

is it an S4 alt? the are only 60 amp I think. S5 is a bit better at 70 or 80. FD is 100. sounds like you need a bigger alt.

I'm hoping you ment to say the bolt on the fuse box?? and not to any of the wires at the fuse box?

 

Thats what I did, worked out fine

 

Word! Thx for the confidence booster... On a sidenote.. you wouldnt want tomaybe do a write up on say... How to rebuild your own NA tranny would you?!? hehe

- James

 

Battery relocation choice:

For drifting you want a higher polar moment of inertia. - Battery near tail lights.

For autocross or road racing you want a lower PMI. - Battery in front of rear axle.

 

You might want to find a "proper" crimping tool before you put the interior back in. Vice grips won't form a proper connection. The real tool actually puts enough pressure on the joint to "cold weld" the cable to the crimp and provides a VERY reliable connection.

 

ARGH!!!! Another crimp gone bad!!!!!

Nice work, but please do yourself a favor and perform the crimps properly/with the right tool: Its called a HAMMER CRIMPER for that size wire

Here is a link to help you out:
http://www.terminaltown.com/Pages/Page21.html

 

thats a forklift / small crane battery.

kinda neat, but a little bit far back from where id want it to be..

 

That is the drag racer location. Mine is in the exact same spot as 88IntegraLS's. Instead of hiding a splice under the carpet, mostly because I don't trust my own electrical work, I used a Phoenix Gold Power Distribution block mounted where the battery used to be.

 

Another comment on the crimp, if you are using the vice grip method (which I don't recommend at all- instead use a Hammer crimper) but either way for the best joint make sure you solder both sides if the joint as well with a good 60/40 solder.

After a while you will find that the vice grip crimp will rot out and the crimp will fail. In addition there will be additional resistance from the crimp without soldering it that will reduce the amount of current that can flow through the joint.

 

I dont know if you plan on racing that or anything, but most tracks require an external master cut off switch with a relocated battery. Thats where the wiring gets tricky because of the alt... You have to run the positive lead from the battery and the alternator to the cut off switch, then to the front of the car to the factory wiring (or how ever you are doing it). Easily 30ft of additional wiring added right there if you are mounting the switch in the back. Many people drill a small hole for the handle to go thru the tail light housing and remove the switch arm and plug the hole with a rubber cap on the street. Not a great thing to add that much wiring with the stock electrical system. Im still using the stock alternator and its working fine for me so far though (and thats with the 25amp draw from my efan).

FYI a master cut off switch is 80$ (?) at summit.

Youll also probably want to secure the battery to stop it from flinging around in the event of a crash. I dont know how strong your enclosure is.

 

I meant from the bolt on the fuse box, not actually one of the fuses.

The alt was a S5 and it was rebuilt to crank out more amps.......120 to be exact. once it goes to 4k it's fine, just at low rpm it doesn't do enough.

 

I don't even have my Pro pak in which would draw even more juice.

 

Fast thats really wierd. I have a stock alt with the setup I just mentioned in my post. I still get 13.65v at idle and 13.85v at 3000rpm+

And thats with my stereo (just 4 aftermarket speakers and a decent head unit), efan, headlights, gauge illumination, turbo timer on. And Ive only got 1 8 gauge wire coming off the + and - posts on my battery (going to add another one of these days..).