Here is a pic of my new battery location.

Due to a rebuild of my engine and time on my hands, I stripped my interior searching for items to remove for weight savings and got the urge to try putting my battery in the right bin . . . and it fit. I am not quite done with it; I will need to extend the positive and negative battery cables which go to the starter, drill a hole in the center hump where they will pass, and extend the alternator positive cable. After making a bracket to mount the fuse block, I discovered that this would require rerouting many wires, so I will be reluctantly removing it and mounting it conventionally in the engine bay.

Well what do you racers think? I have replaced my steel hood with an aluminum 'vert hood, removed the front bumper reinforcement, removed AC stuff, misc. brackets from the engine bay, brake ducting and tow plates. The car may be tail heavy now . . . oversteer?

BTW the objective of all this is to fulfill my obsessive desires. I am not a racer because it looks really expensive. This car was owned by a racer before I bought it and he told me of the need for $ to be competitive. Maybe I will autox it some day.

 

If you really want the battery inside the car, then I'd suggest the following:
- a sealed, gel-cell (e.g., Hawker) type battery
- a sealed battery box, that can be ventilated with tubes to the outside of the car (Summit Racing carries a polyethylene Moroso box, and a house brand aluminum box, that (I think) both meet NHRA requirements)
- securely bolting that box to the floor

What you want to minimize is the chance of a hydrogen explosion, or a shower of lead and sulfuric acid, or big chunks of really heavy stuff hitting you in the head in the event of a wreck.

I'm sure that someone can chime in with some wiring suggestions for your FC. I just wanted to point out some ways to minimize the risk when you move the battery inside.

 

You could keep the battery where you have relocated it to in that picture. I would take some sheet metal and make a shrough around it, basically to enclose it seperate from the cabin, and then drill a litle air vent the rear of the storage bin going to the outside of the car. You could make the sheet metal enclosure removable by the use of bolts or clamps or something.

 

Thanks for the advice, I will seal it in a box and vent it to the outside.

 

wtf is that holding it down? super duct tape? the positioning is good, but you need to put it in a NHRA (i know it's drag racing, but scca agrees with them on this one) approved box and wire it accordingly. get that thing out and autox it, it's not all that expensive, you can go at whatever pace you want as far as mods go, and running a whole season is only like $200+/- some cash.

 

Lol super duct tape! No it is a piece of sheet metal that I bent and drilled. There is a bit of tension on the metal when bolted in and it takes a good 1.5 - 2g load to get the battery to move.

My positioning strategy was to take the thirty pounds sitting on the left front (always the heaviest corner) and move it rightward and rearward. We'll see how it works out when I get the car up and running again ($$).

 

when in doubt, ghettorig it. good choice on moving it right/rearward. that way it helps balance things when you're the only one in the car. we'll see how strong that superduct tape is when you get it rolling.

 

hmm. I still have my storage bin frame and driver's side bin, but I put the moroso box in the passenger side bin (it's too tall for the lid to go on) Rather than string lots of cables, I just ran one huge 1-gauge cable from the battery + terminal to under the hood, and ran the - cable straight to the frame in the bin area, and ran the - lead under the hood to the frame. I didn't trust the battery box to stay put with just the two bolts inside, so I also made a bracket out of 1.5 inch x 1/8 aluminum bar stock and bolted it across the top of the battery box.

 

i would really not worry about getting tail happy just by moving your batter to your back seat, it is before the rear axel as well as being only 30-50 lbs haha

 

Yeah, it is not like this is a Corvair or something. Most of my weight reduction came from areas ahead of the car's CG, hence, my deduction of more oversteer. If I can get enough oversteer from all this I may try removing the rear sway bar and see if I like it. Yet more weight reduced. This is an NA with limited power so I am treating it like an airplane.