^ save some weight for that as well. I could get away with less of a higher quality wire (and am I not finding the right OFC wire?....it is only like 1.50/ft)

 

1.50 a foot is a deal. Is it welding wire or audio wire? I have audio wire because it is more flexible.

 

its audio but I cant find any that is "industrial". so far I think I am going to stick with the radaflex in 2g.

ground the battery in the truck on the shock tower and then ground to the cross-member in the engine bay? saves $ and weight

 

Dude have you seen the welding cable that Hoss-05 got that I am using? It is super flexible and the copper strands are like hairs. Plus it is double shielded, chemical resistant, etc. It is not light though.

 

/\ that's sweet. I was only going by what I remembered from back in the day and have since seen many different welding cables that are great. The weight is the downside.

 

Short grounds are always best. I have a short ground to the shock tower, then a ground running back to the front, as well as a ground running from the engine to the front brace. Overkill? maybe, added weight? not really, that extra pound or two of wire on the passenger side is peanuts against the idiot behind the wheel

 

I wasn't saying I was going with the OFC cable 9k I am doing the cable yard stuff...just still deciding on what to go with (single wire vs double wire?)

If I have to ground the battery in the truck I might as well save $ and make 1 positive run from the nose to the trunk and then 2 short runs (battery to shock and engine bay "terminal" to chassis)

 

Oh ok, good. I thought you were going with some pick speaker wire or something, That double wire stuff is cool as hell.

 

it is but now I am considering if the ground all hte way back to the engine bay is even necessary!

damn I wonder if I can find some pink HD wire....hmmmmm

 

I am just going to ground in the trunk man. And I will add extra grounds from the engine to the chassis with that grounding kit copper wire I got.

 

I relocated my battery to the trunk 8 months ago; here are some notes on my experience:

6 AWG Positive
I used a single 6 gauge fine-strand welding cable from the engine bay to the trunk. It works fine, and the car starts reliably, but the voltage drop across the 6 gauge positive is over 2 volts during cold cranking, which makes the car crank a little slower than usual. Even with a 7 lb battery, the car fires up every time, but if I had to do it again, I would go with 4 gauge.


Remote Battery Posts
I wanted a neat, tidy looking place to mount the OEM battery terminals, so I mounted a set of remote battery posts under the hood in the stock battery location. It looks good (imho), but the brass battery posts are very heavy. If I did it again, I'd use hollow posts.


Cable Routing
As many others have done, I drilled a hole behind the windshield washer reservoir and ran the positive battery cable down the passenger side door threshold below the plastic cover. Be very careful drilling through the fire wall, as there is a wiring harness right next to where you want the hole.

Chassis Ground
I grounded the battery to an OEM chassis ground near the rear seat belt mount. I don't have a pic, but it is behind the plastic interior panel adjacent to the rear seat back. This was also done with 6 gauge fine-strand welding cable, but the cable length is very short. The voltage drop from the negative battery terminal to the engine block during cranking is less than 0.2 V.

Fuse
I added a 125A fuse on the positive cable less than 12" from the battery. I wasn't sure if 125A would be enough, but it hasn't blown yet in 8 months of driving.

That's it. This week the battery is coming back out for winter storage. Two years on the Voltphreaks VPH900, and it's still rock solid.

 

I tried going that route, but had very little success because there is so much crap behind the glove box that i couldn't find a good place to drill . Not sure if the S2's layout is a bit different back there. Any chance you could get a pic?

 

That's exactly how I want to do mine in the engine bay. Did you make that bracket/post setup?

 

why do you want to keep the posts? in the event you want to sell the car?

 

I would just rather not hack up the factory positive and negative connectors.

 

[img]https://funnyfilez.funnypart.com/pictures/FunnyPart-com-no_longer_a_chicken.jpg[\img]

^fail

 

Fail indeed. You can't post pics in the DIY forum noob.

 

damn rules

 

I don't have any pics, but I used the same location as eXentric suggests in this thread:
https://www.rx8club.com/do-yourself-...p-power-16217/

Nope. Bought it from Jegs: JEGS Performance Products 10314 JEGS Remote Battery Jumper Terminal Mounting Bracket

Several other companies make similar brackets for similar money.

 

So that looks like where the steering column would be routed in RHD cars... hrmm, i will have to look for that.

 

Thanks, I just ordered this

JEGS Performance Products 10314K JEGS Remote Battery Jumper Terminal Mounting Bracket


Houston, you can have that other bracket I bought if you want it.

 

There's not much room between the A/C blower and the firewall, plus there is carpet, carpet pad, and the engine wiring harness to deal with. It was a bit nerve-racking, but I think it's the best place to drill the firewall. Just make sure you use a quality grommet and not something which will fall out. Here is the one I used: StreetWires FB4 4-gauge firewall bushing at Crutchfield.com

 

That's the one I have. I should have mentioned - the battery posts in that kit are larger diameter than OEM. You'll need to stretch your OEM battery terminals a bit to fit.

 

Thanks for the tip!

 

I think that is what discouraged me from going that route .... not so much the carpeting and junk, but i didn't want to come through and nail an AC line or blower. when I did this I actually went across behind the console and over to the drivers side through teh firewall grommet. Might as well just leave it there since it hasn't posed any problems.