SC400
Been thinking of doing this for a while to get some weight out of the front end. Wondering what potential problems I could encounter from doing this. I'm getting a voltage stabilizer and I was going to redo my grounds and connections anyway so I figure I'll do this at the same time.

I'll pull the seats and peel back the carpet to run the wires. And I'll try to get through the firewall through a grommet so everything is water tight.
Wondering if anyone knows a good grommet location?

I haven't decided where to mount the battery as of yet, but I am going to remove the stock stereo amp and 12 disk and all that melarchy at the same time.

I'd like to do the electric fan mod as well to free up some hp and remove the 45lbs or so of weight.

Possible locations for the battery are:
1. spare tire well, if it's deep enough. I have AAA, don't need a spare.
2. Where the CD changer was. But all the weight is off to one side of the car.
3. Behind the partition near the gas tank. Not easily accessable.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

I thought about this too for a 2nd battery to run my seriously under-powered stereo but here are some problems. As you get further from the source you loose power through cables, your adding weight to only 1 side of the trunk and not the other/ floor isn't flat where the cd changer and such is and mounting would be a bother, AND anything near the gas tank that's electric like that might not be the best idea... just some thoughts but I think you might run into more probs than solutions with this idea.

 

yea anything electric might be a problem, but keep in mind the stock sub and two speakers are right there, their magnets mere inches from the gas tank.

 

Would love to see pics of this mod as well, the car seems very nose heavy, I've noticed on some cars such as the audi's where the battery is located closer to the firewall....this idea seems worthy of discussion for sure!

 

very easy. i did on my crx in an hour or so. i can show you pics if you like as well as let you know what materials you will need.

 

http://store.summitracing.com/egnsea...ts=false&N=115

 

i know this is OT, but how big of a risk is there with having our gas tank right there? how big of a spark/fire/etc. would be enough to make it blow? i've always been wondering. right now my trunk is gutted and people always ask me what that giant tank is for.. and when i tell them the gas tank they freak out.

 

If I was to redo my entire sound system I would definetly move the battery to the rear and add a second (or more depending on how big of a system). It'll move some of the nose heavy weight to the rear tires (more traction).

But that's alot of dough I'd spend on it, I'd be doing alot of work in the trunk if I was going to go that route.

 

I do not think that the battery being near the gas tank will cause any harm. Theres an electric fuel pump in side of the gas tank.

If you run large enough gauge wire you won't loose any current.
The downside is weight, but the weight is located low in the car and near the center.

The battery is hanging off the front end of the car right now and on one side, which is probably one of the worst locations for weight transfer.

I will probably use 1/0 wire and use several grounds in the trunk compartment.

We will see, I'll be starting this up the end of next month after i return from vacation.

 

I used a lightweight dry-cell battery and 2 gauge wire to re-locate to the trunk...so overall i dropped like 30lbs and got some extra space under the hood...at 3500lbs the SC needs all the weight reduction you can do to it

 

I did. You get so much more room in the engine bay. Also, u can lock ur trunk from inside under the dash, so u can add a power switch by the battery in the trunk to act as an alarm. so people can't jack ur car! unless they break into ur trunk. But most likely, the thief won't know shiet

 

Here's mine...I installed the sub on the left, side, so it balanced out the weight...







Ryan

 

Cool to hear that you we able to use 2 gauge wire without any problems.

Is this as simple as cutting the end off of the factory battery cable, splicing on a new heavy gauge wire and running it back to the trunk?

As far as grounds go, I won't have a problem grounding the battery in the trunk to the chassis but what about the grounds on the engine and other parts of the wiring harness? Do they need to be included in this install as well?

Besides the alternator, the starter, and the ignition switch, what else is powered directly by the hot side of the battery? Is there a distribution box that goes to the fuse panels?

I want to ensure I do this properly. The heavy use of computers and sophisitcaed electronics on these cars is intimidating to me at times.

I was also kicking the idea around of eventually removing the ABS system from the car entirely. I wonder how many pounds could be gained by doing this.

 

here's what i did, pics later:

i suffered from the powersteering leaking onto the alternator so i did this all at once.
i upgraded to a 200amp alternator and from there, i added 0 guage wiring to a distribution block that's near the driver's front shock tower. I kept the stock wiring in place since current flows in least resistance. Besides, i found the stock wire from alternator to branch off to other locations i didn't really want to mess with. So anyways from the distritubtion box, i ran 0 guage through a hole in the firewall i previously had for my edfc (below the brake master cylinder), and under the carpet and through the trunk. It wrapped around the trunk near the taillights to avoid the gas tank and connected to a yellow top in the stock cd changer location. I mounted it using the bottom piece of the cd changer, kept it simply. I used 2 or 3 ground points for the battery.

 

That's an extremely important safety feature...I would not remove that...Kind of like driving a motorcycle without a helmet...everything is fine until you need it, then you are screwed...

Ryan