Has anybody done this? I can only think of putting it in the spare tire well.

 

.why?..do you not have bins?. Japanese Mini rear Seats huh?
Get a marine style battery storage box and put it behind the Passenger rear wheel Strut tower,on the floor.
it has been done.
The Spare tire well is good too,but you loose the Spare!..( I don't care about this,as I put my Amp in the spare tire well!,battery in the passenger rear bin.).

 

or just get a really small battery like a PC680

 

Small batteries are great until the car floods out. Or you need to run the headlights with the car off. Or you need to boost someone else. Or you need to have the 4 ways on for a long time. Or you are at the drive-in and need to use the stereo to hear the movie. Or you leave something on in the car and go into the office for 8 hours.

I wouldn't recommend the spare tire area because you really do need the spare. I had a 3 hour walk in the middle of nowhere 10 years ago because I thought it was a good idea to remove the spare to "save weight".

How about make a nice battery box that mounts between the passenger shock tower and rear of the car? Carpet it or cover it to match your interior.

 

well heres the deal i cant have the spare cause i did a full TII suspension swap in the car and the enkei 5-lug spare that i have wont fit in the stock tire well like the 4-lug enkei spare that i had. I dont really want to cut holes in the carpet and stuff so i was looking to see what others have done and everyone but me apparently, has storage bins. I like the idea of mounting it between the rear and the shock tower though. Heres a pic of what im working with. 87 se full TII swap

 

o damn !!!! lol

 

My car is exactly like yours. I dont have the bins.

If you remove the "bin area" you will see there is plenty of room to put the battery under there, and It will just take you 15 mins longer to change the battery. Under the carpet is a fiberglass structure with plywood where the bin lids would be. You could do it without cutting the carpet at all, and it will look exactly as it does now.

I have a steel 5 lug spare and it fits in my rear tire well.

 

ok that sounds like a plan to me..........do you have any pics at all?

 

You'll be mounting the battery just like folks with bins, just less convenient access.
You could install remote terminals to make charging easier (should you need to).

Mine's mounted like this...

 

wow that bracket looks nice....thanks for the input guys!! No on to the wiring Ive seen a few different ways but hows the best way to do it? Would i just run new + wire from the relocated battery, use a connector and solder to splice it into the old + wire. Also would i just grond the ground cable up front to the chassis and ground the neg off the battery to the back? Thanks for all the feedback

 

In my pics above you can see the battery ground stud on the chassis crossmember.

I got an isolated terminal and bolted it to the front rail, ran the battery positive to it and tied the stock positive cable to it as well.
Stud looks like this...


And it;s located like so...


It's pretty handy as the battery can be charged from under the hood (not that I've had to do so yet...) and I didn't have to mess with the stock wiring much.

The stock ground cable already has a copper chassis mount a few feet downstream of the battery...just cut the now useless battery terminal end at that point and rebolt it to the strut tower.

 

I dunno about you guys but over here if we wanna put our battery in the boot, it has to be in a sealed box with a vent going to outside the car. Man i wish my car had storage bins considering that's all i use the back seats for. So hard to get ahold of over here =(

 

that looks really good!! thanks i should be done with it this week

 

Who makes that? It looks perfectly shaped for an Optima.

 

Looks like the ones available at Jegs to me:
http://www.jegs.com/pt/Battery+Tray

Reconsider using an Optima though. Their quality is far from what it was 6+ years ago.

 

even 6 years ago they were crap. my s-10 with acid etched paint is proof of that.

 

It is an Optima shaped unit.
I machined it but the design was lifted from one I saw a few years back.

I've used nothing but Optimas for the past several years and never had a lick of trouble.
Maybe just lucky, maybe Optimas aren't as bad as you guys think.

 

i had a red top and a friend had a yellow top, both popped the vents out and started venting acid(granted mine dropped a cell so the alternator was trying to full field the battery to charge it, doesn't change the issue that the battery took a giant dump). another had his die out in about a year, i don't use them even though i have and they worked well until they crapped out.

 

I've had nothing but bad luck with Optimas. First one died after about 6 months and was replaced on warranty. At the same time I put in a new alternator just in case. Second one lasted 5 months, Optima would not warranty.

Every car that I have worked on with an Optima has had chronic low battery issues.

Deka all the way now.

 

Hmm. My optima is 4 years old now, has been over charged from the voltage reg. taking a crap, has been completely drained multiple times, and was threw out of a car in a rollover, and it still works great.

Just my $0.02

 

deka makes braille batteries dont they?

 

The hell if I'm paying over a hundred bucks a battery.

I usually get them from Parts cars that I've scrapped, someone who bought a new battery for their car, or find them on the side of the road or behind auto parts stores...

Top off the water and they usually last me another three to four years.

Batteries Plus has a good line of ~$80 AGM batteries though.

 

Ah, I sense a disparity.
I'd suggest that none of us has enough experience with Optimas to extrapolate a statistically significant opinion.
I'll bet that on some other forum there's a thread just like this about Deka (or insert your fave brand instead) and it probably goes just like this one.

 

^

Exactly... My buddy hated Interstate brand batteries, but they're pretty popular and many people say they're the only one to trust... Which is why I use the only figure that matters in a street car: Price... And free is a hard to beat price.