Battery relocation issues?

[dmention7]

Does anyone know if there are specific issues that must be addressed when relocating a battery from the engine bay to the trunk? Do you need to include any venting to keep it safe and/or street legal? How about running the battery wires--can those be routed under the carpet, or do they need to stay outside the passenger compartment like fuel lines?

I'm pondering it mainly to free up some room under the hood because I really want to try a water/air intercooler setup, and it would leave more room for the exchanger and piping.

 

[Big Nate]

You can run the lines inside.


But you need to have a dry cell battery or you will have dangerous fumes coming into the car. I have also considered this. Keep us updated on what you find.

 

[dmention7]

I'm currently running an optima redtop which is a sealed gel-cell battery--as far as I have researched, they seem to be perfectly safe to locate in the trunk.

 

[Big Nate]

that would be fine to put in the trunk.

The only thing you need to do is make sure you have good continuity with the wires/connections.

 

[dmention7]

I've got the battery box mounted in the trunk, and I've got some hardcore welding cable on order (most relocation kits include 2 gauge, I've got 1 gauge). The one question I have is, what's the best way to attach the positive cable from the battery to the wires that used to attach to the battery in the engine bay? So I've got the battery cable coming from the trunk, and I need to hook that up the couple wires that are currently clamped to the positive battery terminal, but I'm not sure what the best type of connector would be.

 

[Big Nate]

Here is a link a a marine grade dealer that has a lot of good stuff. plus they can build the cable for you if you know the langth you want. But we can just order the stuff you need to finish your project. LINK

Then we can wrap that with a shrinking cable cover *Fun color heat shrink tubing here* We can even get fancy colors.

 

[dmention7]

My only concern about that is that I'm connecting a 1 gauge cable to (IIRC) two 4 gauge cables and one smaller cable, and I don't know if a simple butt splice connector would work well for the multiple cables. Maybe I'd be best off just getting an automotive distribution block?

 

[Big Nate]

Sure that would work. Why did you not just use 4 Gauge wire from the trunk to Under the hood?? I would not think you would lose that much power on the length of a run.

 

[dmention7]

Heh, I figured if I was going to do it, I might as well do it well. Electrical stuff always gets me a little bit paranoid, so I prefer to go overkill. Plus, I think the difference between a 25-foot roll of 1 gauge and 4 gauge was only about $20 or so.

 

[DrWebster]

Use a distro block. You'll also want fuses both at the battery and at the distro block, so you don't burn your car down if you get a short.

 

[Picklz]

Something like this would probably work well for your application:
http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KNF-12

 

[dmention7]

Good call on the fuses. I did a little googling, but didn't see an answer to what size fuse I'd want to run on the main battery supply. Anyone know?

 

[Picklz]

150ish perhaps? I think you'd want to match your alternator fairly closely, but I guess I don't know that for sure. Never relocated a battery before. But I think it's a great idea.

 

[dmention7]

Aha, I found a good template for what I'm trying to accomplish: http://wgbuckley.com/projects/battery.html

Looks like the way to go is going to put a circuit breaker at the battery (will also serve as a disconnect), and then a fused distro block under the hood, with a 60-100A fuse inline at the original main battery cable.

 

[mndsm]

Wow, this is all good stuff. methinks this may be next on the list when I get my car back. So much for stock!

 

[Workdawg]

OOO, monster cable stuff, it must be good!

 

[Picklz]

OOO, monster cable stuff, it must be good!

They do make good stuff, it's just generally overpriced.

The circuit breaker idea is a good one, I had one of those on the audio install that was in my truck and it was nice to be able to just flip the breaker if I wanted to work on something rather than mess with taking fuses out.

 

[dmention7]

I ended up ordering this one (thanks for the link Matt) http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KNF-23

It's got 2 heavy-gauge inputs, and 3 smaller gauge fused outputs. I figure I can use one of the inputs as the power wire, and the second input as a straight-through output for the main battery cable with an inline fuse if necessary.

 

[YSOSLO]

So Jay did you get this thing done this weekend or what?

 

[dmention7]

I ran the main power cable from the trunk to the engine bay and got the ground wire put together. But I realized I needed a couple more little bits to do the engine bay wiring the way I wanted--ordered them last night, and I should finish up later this week or on the weekend.