OneBadRx7

I noticed where almost everyone relocated their battery to the passenger side bin, is there a specific reason for this? I have some things mounted in my passenger side bin already and would like to use the drivers side and I will be using an Optima red top, I will be ok in doing this right? Thanks,

Steve

potatochobit

iTrader: (1)

its fine, people put it on the passenger side to balance the weight of the driver. mine is mounted in the trunk next to the rear passenger side strut tower brace, since i have the cd changer in the passenger bin. i also have the red top. it wont fit in the bin without major cutting though and i dont want to do that.

OneBadRx7

Yeah...I used to have mine in the hatch area as well but I decided its time to move it to a bin and out of sight. As far as balancing out the weight, I only weigh 120 pounds so whats another 30 that battery is gonna add, HAHA. Thanks for the response.

CCarlisi

Keep in mind the fuel lines run below the dirver side bin. If you are planning on running the power cable under the car I would suggest putting the battery on the pas side.

sporff

120 lbs? man you take weight reduction to an extreme!

OneBadRx7

HAHA, yeah I am die hard. No actually I have a lung disease that makes it very hard for me to gain weight thats all. I am 5' 9" and 120, pretty bad huh, oh well nothing I can do, lol. I think I might just relocate the things in my passenger bin and stick it in there, thanks guys.

jimlab

Most people put the battery behind the driver's seat because the cable run is shorter, and it started out on the driver's side of the car to begin with. It would help to offset the driver's weight somewhat to put it behind the passenger's seat, but it's not absolutely necessary, especially since you'll never be able to tell the difference in handling regardless of which seat it goes behind.

If you have coilovers you can have your car corner balanced with the driver in the car to compensate for the weight. There are even shops that can set the alignment up to take into account the driver's weight, if you're that concerned about balancing and handling.

Many use the Hawker Genesis, which is a pretty lightweight battery, all things considered. There is a channel along side each door sill that you can run up to 2-gauge cable in easily, and behind the driver's kick panel there is a rubber grommet which the power cable can pass through. Remove the fender liner and run it up the fender along with the engine bay wiring harness, and into the engine bay right by the power distribution block. It's pretty obvious once you remove the required panels.

I'd also recommend a 200-amp circuit breaker mounted within 12 inches of the battery's positive terminal, and ground the battery to the chassis with another 12-18 inch cable. In the event of a wreck, if the battery cable gets pinched, the circuit breaker will prevent a short circuit and the possibility of an electrical fire. It's also very handy for "turning off" the battery when you need to work on your car. Just trip the circuit and then reset it when you're done.

jramosrx7

I recently relocated mine to the driver's side bin. I used a Dremel tool to cut out the lower half of the compartment (about 5" from the top). A friend gave me a bracket he had fashioned that bolts to the threaded holes covered by plugs on each side. The battery sits on this. I ran the positive cable from the fuse box up front to the battery, and grounded it to the bolt that holds the seat belt. Works fine.

SanJoRX7

Just put the battery in your passenger seat and buckle it in. Should be good enough

voodooracing

people puttin it inside the bin, but often forget to install proper strap down. a battery box with proper venting and tie-down is a good choice.

OneBadRx7

I didnt use a tie down but its lodged in there to where its not going anywhere.

jimlab

Here's a picture of my first setup...



I cut out a rectangle in the front of the bin pocket just large enough for the battery to fit through easily, and then notched the rear wall of the bin pocket where the battery's rear corners would have interfered with the curve of the back wall. At that point, it was supported securely from below.

I then took a piece of aluminum angle bracket ("L") and cut it about 2 or 2.5" wider than the battery. I drilled a hole through it at the corner of the "L" on each side large enough for a 3/8" bolt to pass through. I then set it under the front edge of the battery and drilled holes in the front wall of the bin pocket from below where the bolts would hit. Using two long 3/8" bolts (sorry, don't remember the length), I marked where they'd hit the back wall of the bin pocket and drilled two more holes.

With the bolts going through the "L" bracket from below the front lower edge of the battery and passing through the bin pocket on each side of the it, I finished off the bracing by drilling two matching holes through a flat piece of aluminum and put it over the ends of the bolts protruding from the back wall of the bin and bolted it down. Now the battery was firmly held in place. I then covered the shafts of the bolts with some black 3/8" split wiring loom to make it look better.

I mounted the circuit breaker on the inside wall of the bin, as you can see, in easy reach of the driver's seat, then passed the ground and power wires out through holes drilled in the bottom of the bin pocket. If you have a lot of spare time and patience, that's one way to do it. The only problem with it is that if you have to remove the battery, for whatever reason, you have to remove the bins too in order to reach the bolts on the brace.

The second time around, I just whacked the bottom off both bins (I never used them anyway) so that I could make the panel flexible enough to get through the main hoop of my roll bar, and notched the front of the panel to go around the uprights of the main hoop. A custom battery box is welded to the floor pan beneath the driver's bin, and everything else is pretty much the same, except the circuit breaker is no mounted on the front of the bin panel, on the outside edge where it can easily be reached with the door open and the seat reclined.

Hope that helps.

jimlab

Here's another picture which shows the bolts of the bracket system on each side of the battery. I guess I used rubber grommets on the bolt holes, and it looks like the top right of the battery also required a notch in the rear wall of the bin pocket to fit properly. Boy, that was a lot of work wasted.

OneBadRx7

Looks good Jim thanks. I have the same circuit breaker too.

jdhuegel1

Very clean Jim.

ejmack1

I had mine behind my drivers seat for th elongest time.... It is getting mounted in the rear this time...

ejmack1

I can almost copy your sig word for word... only changing parts that have an "r" at the end to an "s"

jdhuegel1

Your's will beat me out of the garage though...

Post Office is CLOSED today man... You wanna come get the return line? PM'd ya