Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications General Mods battery trunk relocation!! Where is the best spot?

Hmm, interesting. I hadn't thought about that, something to now consider.

Are you guys planning on running it inside the car or under? I have decided yet. I am thinking under the car just because I don't want to try and hide it under the carpet and through the firewall.

O3

Inside the car under the plastic framing then through the firewall.

I ordered the Painless wire kit from Summit and will probably rig up my brackets and such for in the trunk.

I was curious what you guys were using under the hood for connections?

I was thinking wiring the + Bat cable from the trunk to the positive feed on the starter solenoid, and then using the cable that normally goes from the starter to the +Bat in the to one of those slick audio terminal blocks and wiring the remaining smaller gauge wires there.

Any suggestions on what to use to distribute the power?


I don't really want anything fused, or if I did use a fuse, it would be closer to the battery.

I've also thought of getting the "remote" positive battery terminal from one of the Chrysler "cloud cars" (Stratus, Cirrus, etc) and mounting that under the hood to bring in the power, and have a location under the hood for a traditional "jumpstart" connection.

Just thinking out loud and wondering what others are doing.

TB

You *need* a fuse or circuit breaker less than 18 inches from the battery, or you're just asking for trouble. That long of an unfused link can be a real fire hazzard otherwise.

Power distribution is easiest by using a power distribution block from a stereo shop. Find a nice aesthetic place to mount it and you could still use the rest of the factory wiring (several + and - leads from the battery to connect to the fuse block remember). The same type of distribution block can be used for the ground side to ease installation.

Yes, after thinking about it for all of 30 seconds I realized that a fuse is required at the battery end of a long +Bat Cable run.

Most of the stuff I saw online (looking for ideas) put fuses under the hood, but about 15 feet too far from the battery.

My concern about some of the stereo component stuff is how will it do under the hood, say with the extra heat of a turbo ???

That's why I was thinking of the "remote battery terminal" that the Chrysler cloud cars use.

I don't know how familiar you are with these cars, but the battery is in the front fender, down low, and the cable is run to a standard battery terminal near the engine. This allows for easier jumpstarts.

I was thinking, if you could mount the same thing, it's already made to connect battery cables, etc.

So who has pictures of their underhood wiring for a battery relocation?

TB

Well, I've finished the relocation on Sunday. The wires from Summit arrived Saturday via FedEx, so I went shopping for a few more items.

I purchased a 150A circuit breaker, battery box, new tie downs 20' of flexible, non-metallic conduit, an outdoor outlet box, and a couple of extra "starter to switch" wires for grounding.

I mounted the battery box in the trunk, passenger side near the antenna. In fact, the electic antenna mount makes a great location for a ground as well, so that's where I located the ground.

I drilled the holes and bolted the battery box to the trunk and I'm going to go back and drill two more holes for the battery hold-downs. Right now the battery is just along for the ride in the box.

I put the breaker on the back of the box, ran a short 2 gauge wire from the battery positive terminal to the input of the breaker, I ran the 1 gauge wire from the breaker through an existing hole in the floor, after I sheathed the wire in the 1/2" ID plastic conduit.

I routed the conduit carrying the wire over the rear suspension bits and over to the drivers side of the car. It goes along the fuel tank and along the boxed frame member under the car.

I drilled a couple of holes for wire tires where there were already cutouts in the frame member, and then shot them with a bit of rustoleum black paint and then some spray undercoating to resist corrosion.

I threaded the wire into the engine compartment through the drivers front wheel. I need to go back and put another hole there so I can tie up the conduit a bit neater.

I ran the conduit carrying wire into the plastic outlet box that has three openings. I brought the starter wire in a second opening, and the four 8-10 gauge wires into the third. I removed the large metal connector that goes to the positive side of the battery and wired each of the large red wires to it's own ring terminal and then shrink wrapped the wires in pairs. (I removed the yellow insulators on the ring terminals, slipped two wires into the shrink tubing before crimping on the terminals, and then once the crimping was done, melted the shrink tube into place.

I made all of my connections in the outlet box, and put the the gasket and cover in place. I'll probably paint the box black to match everything else. I'm really thinking I should have painted the conduit black or red before I ran it, it is blue and you can get 10' at Lowes for under $3.00

I figure I'll watch the conduit to ensure it doesn't melt or do any other bad things. But now there is nearly a 1/4" of plastic that must chaife before metal meets wire contact can occur.

For the ground side of the circuit under the hood, I took the large metal ground point that goes to the battery and simply bent it up a bit so I could mount to an existing ground lug. For the engine ground, I simply used one of the switch to starter wires and wired it to the negative battery cable. The ring is still in place.

I have some other work that I'll be doing under the hood, so I can clean up the starter wire (also just bolted the terminal to the battery feed wire) and will probably locate the switch wire to an out of site location and eliminate the battery terminal for that connection as well.

But it works for now

TB