Relocating Battery To Boot - Battery Mount

[robots]

What about the wiring ? How would you run the battery wires after relocation ? Run 2 wires to the engine bay ? + and - and connect them to factory earth.

Or just run + to the engine bay and make new earth somewhere inside the boot ?

Need some suggestions please.

Or some good info on relocating the battery. Mainly the wiring.

Thanks!

[Beer Baron]

yep, just make a new ground (or 2) in the boot.

[GeeTR]

Have a good think about what your trying to achieve, snot too hard.

People use grounding kits to avoid different qualitative earths in a engine bay... so you reckon earthing the battery at the rear chassis is good enough?....

Ppl do, but personally (man, friends say i give too much away) you need to run a earth to the engine bay. Not as thick as the power cable, 4G say.

Iv seen so many issues caused by crap earth's, for something so simple, ppl seem to forget it (even if its not apparent, its causing them issues)

0/2G to the front, 250A fuse (should survive the starter motor drain) earthing kit in the bay. Run the cable under the car, or inside depending. ( I prefer inside)

Take the time to wack in a kill switch. Simply popping it, instead of removing a battery terminal is a god send when working on your car.

I tend to over engineer everything, specially when its mission critical; You can decide to make it as simple, or as extravagant as you want.

Edited March 10, 2008 by GeeTR

[Gts-t]

Ill have a look at the car soon, i just got back from testing the 33 gearbox. Thumbs up to ProphetR33 for selling me a mint condition box!

Robots: the ground goes from the battery to my strut bar, u can see it in my dodgy pic if you look close

[Douse]

I have been thinking about this for a while, and everyone i speak to says that voltage drop is a serious issue...

Is this the case?

A battery relocation is not a necessity, but i would like to have the roomier engine bay, and the option to increase the battery size as the small jap one in my car sucks the big one....

Does running a fat power cable such as 2G eliminate voltage drop issues?

[robots]

I run both wires to the engine. Got no fuses. Just connect to existing earth and +. Sometimes engine is harder to start. Really annoying.

If I hook up another earth in the boot it just starts in no time. So whats the deal with all this ?

Anyone good info with pics or something ? Like u need 12 meter of thick cables, fusebox, need to make another earth in the boot.

By the way, if I connect - of the battery to something metal in the boot via battery charging cables. I got good voltage at idle, and engine starts normally.

But I sometimes get hit with electricity when exiting the car. Touching the drivers door.

I run my wires through interior. Under carpets.

[Gts-t]

Robots, run a cable down underneath the car from the starter to the battery, then run the ground to somewhere good in your boot. The cable is pretty heavy and there is no need to have two cables from the front of the car to the back.

[Swiper the Fox]

1 of the jap brands makes a really nice looking alloy battery box, that or just a regular plastic battery box im sure would do fine.

I have a SARD battery box in our racecar...boot mounted, very secure, vented etc. will take a pic next time i see the car. I use the spare tyre mount for the earth and ran new + cable up to front bar mounted cutoff switch.

[GeeTR]

...I hook up another earth in the boot it just starts in no time. So whats the deal with all this ?

Ground at boot and e.bay dood.

[Keeper]

would running the vent pipe out the grommets in the boot floor be fine?

[djr81]

Just get a dry cell battery, a box & install it in the boot.

The good things about doing this are:

Moves weight tot he rear.

Frees up room under the bonnet ( I relocated the carbon canister for more air to the filters)

Bad thing is if you need to carry stuff you have alot less room.

[infamous_t]

No need to vent to outside if you use a dry cell, perfect example is the factory setup on later model skylines (later r33, r34 etc).

Dry cell batteries still emit hydrogen, just no where near as much as the wet cell brothers.

Just a note, if you are going to ground the earth in the boot, make sure to remove paint of contact surface, and check theres good continuity with a multimeter.

Personally I'd run both cables back to the engine bay, but it'll be a weight penalty for those that watch their weight

[Keeper]

out of curisosity dont dry cell batteries need different charger types?

[Keeper]

Robots, run a cable down underneath the car from the starter to the battery, then run the ground to somewhere good in your boot. The cable is pretty heavy and there is no need to have two cables from the front of the car to the back.

why run it under the car and not through the cabin ???

[saliya]

I'm sure lots of people have done this but I can't find anything by searching. I'm keen to see where and how people have mounted their batteries as that would save me a lot of time. Pics would be greatly appreciated. I'd particularly like to see the set up in a racecar (not sure if CAMS allows it) as that'll have been scrutineered and give me a good idea of what I need to do to stop the battery flying through the back seat. Also race people can you tell me where you got your relocation kits from please?

Not sure if I'll use a dry cell or standard battery.

Cheers and thanks

I have no pics, but to get engineered I needed a box; holes cut in the floorpan to permit the battery (not the box) to be strapped down _in_ the box;

and a plate bolted _under_ the floorpan with matching holes to secure the straps through. Straps thru under plate hold battery down, battery holds box down.

The lid just sits on and apparently that's OK.

Used some big fat audio cable to go from the +ve at the front through the cabin to the back, no holes drilled to run cable.

100A or so fuse block inline on the cable near the +ve battery terminal.

Earth found at back with short length of same cable wrapped in black tape and soldered into a big ring which bolts to the car.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Saliya

Edited June 13, 2008 by saliya

[djr81]

out of curisosity dont dry cell batteries need different charger types?

My battery charger won't charge a completely flat dry cell. It just sees an open circuit & shuts down.

So I just borrow the neighbours skanky old one which isn't clever enough to care. Works fine.

[Keeper]

My battery charger won't charge a completely flat dry cell. It just sees an open circuit & shuts down.

So I just borrow the neighbours skanky old one which isn't clever enough to care. Works fine.

what about the day to day charging cycle of the battery?

[infamous_t]

out of curisosity dont dry cell batteries need different charger types?

They need to be charged at an overall lower voltage than normal wet batteries.

what about the day to day charging cycle of the battery?

An alternator will never get a battery to 100%, thats why better battery chargers have multiple cycles to properly charge them.

So its not an issue for dry cell batteries being charge in car.

About the only issue related to charging is when their exposed to high heat, like in the engine bay(especially when battery is to close to engine), and gets heavily charged/discharged.

[ellie]

Just giving this a bump to see if anyone else had some pics of there relocation? As not to impede on the boot space so much I was thinking of securing it in the LHR of the boot. I see there is a chassis rail under there and figured it ideal to have the strap around.

[murrayis]

Another bump as I'm interested in doing the same thing to my 32.