battery relocation with pics
 

just finished my battery relocation, sorry about the crappy pics will post better ones tomorrow. used a 4 gauge positive & negative. added a couple of extra grounds from the engine to chassis and used a 140 amp circuit breaker. grounded the battery on the strut tower brace.

nice work. i would put a black box around it...is too ghetto that way. functional but ghetto.

Nice. Im going to be doing mine soon as well. What gauge wire did you used? I just bought a 4 gauge, looks little thinner than yours.

why did you not put it in the bin behind the back seat?

What did you use to mount your battery hold down frame with?



later

congratulations on getting something out of the engine compartment and moving it rearward to gain more rear weight.

that said, your project is not complete. the battery needs to be in the pass side luggage compartment thus lowering the heavy item approximately a foot. lower CG, faster FD. being in the bin it, is significantly less likely to become a missle in a rear ender and you have an unencumbered rear hatch area.

i am sure what you have done will work for you and you have done it well but anyone else looking at your install should look elsewhere as to placement.

hc

looka like my rear compartment lol just mine has leather instead of carpet and a sound system back there.

are you going to cover it?

What's it fastened down with?

looks kind of dangerous to me..

No reply may mean that it is bolted to the carpet, which means projectile, which means battery decapatation upon head on collision.


Later

Looks like one of the ebay optima tie downs. They use 6 bolts out the bottom to hold the bottom of the tie down to the frame and then 2 bolts to hold down the edges of the battery at the bottom.

Mines just sitting in the back... What's a good way to secure it?

There is a great, multi-page how to thread on this topic with pics, parts and everything you could ever need to know about relocating the battery in the FAQ thread stickied in this forum.

Has anyone ever put a battery in the spare tire well?

For the lazy: here it is.

Final install looks like this:

https://www.stanford.edu/~sunid/batt...InstallTop.JPG

That is very clean, and nicely done. I'm going to bookmark your writeup :) .

just a warning to those looking to do this:

dont buy a cheap wire, reason being is a lot of companies like to say its 4 gauge but it has an 8 guage size wire in a 4 gauge size rubber. just something to be aware of.

+1

that was worded very nicely, lol

Why would you put it in the passenger storage box vs the drivers? The one on the drivers side doesn't lock so I'd much rather lose use of that one.

Better weight distribution is the main reason. I don't think I've had anything in my bins the entire time I have owned the car.

People typically avoid having to drill near the fuel lines that run under the drivers side bin.

I do think that the passenger side placement isn't perfect for everyone. While I understand the whole CG argument, some of us use that bin to hold things (eg. oil, coolant, what have you) or have a battery too large to jam in there without hacking the crap out of the bin. So it may not be an option. Mine is getting mounted in a box dead center directly under the tower bar. If it's good enough for the Apex drift FD it's probably good enough for me.

That's a race car so exposed items hanging out in the cabin would be the norm. While there is no technical reason that a properly secured battery can't work in the hatch area, it just looks desperately amateurish in a street car - IMHO.

The relocation referenced in post #15 is what I patterned my relocation after. VERY clean as well as safe.

sorry I took so long to reply, I have the tray bolted through the carpet and to the chassis. (thank you all very much for all the comments.) (sarcasm) I didnt put it in the bins because I use the bins to hold my premix,extra oil, and a gallon of water after all it is an rx-7. and dont mind losing the trunk space as I dont use it to do groceries.

"Why would you put it in the passenger storage box vs the drivers?"

if you weigh your car you will find the heaviest corner is the LF... steering column, driver etc. ideally you want as much weight as possible in the rear and in the rear right side. this is also inside weight for most clockwise road courses.

that said.... i completely realize that we all have differing goals as we mod our FDs. if you wish to mount your battery in the back hatch area have at it. i am merely commenting from an engineering perspective.

howard coleman