http://www.odysseybatteries.com/battery/pc680t.htm

I pulled the trigger and ordered the Odyssey PC 680T along with a black hold down cover for it. With the black cover I believe the installation should look very clean. The battery is 16lbs including the hold down cover compared to the stock battery weighing in at a hefty 42.5lbs. The car will be losing 26.5lbs! Seems the best bang for the buck we can spend on making the IS350 quicker is by reducing it's weight and of course running in cooler weather. The car is my daily driver so it never sits for very long, but if I do go on an extended vacation or something I'll just disconnect the battery to be on the safe side.

Did some measuring today and it's going to be very very close if I decide to mount the 680 flat. If I end up going with the flat mounting then I will probably have to cut the plastic battery tray out around the battery terminals as they will probably be about .25" too long at those points, other wise a perfect fit. My other option will be to mount the battery vertical against the firewall with some short screws that won't go to far through the firewall as I'm not exactly sure what is behind there.



As you can see here the battery tray comes out, so if I decide to mount flat here then I will have to screw down this flat tray. Will just have to be careful with all the wires here.

 

Odyssey batteries are my favorite!! Mind telling us how much you paid?

 

$197.24 shipped from CA.

 

hmm this looks interesting.. im excited to see if it works good and is easy to install..

 

The battery and hold down arrived today so I did some test fitting. Seems I have few options and I'm open for others.

Option #1 is to mount it to the firewall.


Option #2 is to modify the battery to so that I can slide the new battery and holder back so that the terminals aren't so close to the firewall.


Option #3 would be to make a custom battery tie down. Here is a picture for reference.

 

do the custom battery tie down.

 

are there any negatives to using this battery as oppose to the normal one?

 

The custom hold down will weight 26.5 lbs.

Koz

 

Always a wise guy in the group. hehe

 

Put it in the trunk, and as low as possible in the car. It will help with weight transfer when corrnering and clean up the engine bay. You will just need some battery wires and connectors. Their are alot of "how to's" on the net, like this one for a Vette. http://www.lingenfelter.com/pdf/batt...nsversion2.pdf

 

i wonder if the difference in 1/4 mile time (maybe a 1/10th) from using this light weight battery would be about the same as relocating the battery to the trunk.. for better traction and weight transfer..

if so that would be a good and cheap mod..

 

I'm fairly certain it'll be good for a 1/10th.

 

yea but what about the idea of moving it to the rear.. instead of buying a new battery?

 

I'm not doing it. I don't have traction problems and by moving it to the rear would add even more weight and it would be a pain in the **** to do the relocation. I actually don't even plan to run the PC680 in the winter and want it to be easy to switch between the two.

 

Mounting sideways is good as long as the terminals don't touch any metal, you wouldn't want that to happen because the end result would be disastrous. Good luck let us know what you did.