I've gotten a couple of people asking for a good how-to to hook up a battery the way I did. I wrote a long ass how-to for Steve, so here goes!
First of all: I got all my stuff from
www.knukonceptz.com but that's a no-brainer!
You need:
1) Battery, duh! I got a Red Top because if and when I get money, I'll put the big stuff in the trunk that'll run off a separate Yellow Top. Since Steve already has a cap for his amp, I suggested he go with the Red Top.
2)
Battery terminal covers are 12 bucks each, you'll need two.
3) You need two of these
distribution blocks . One for the positive side, one for negative.
4) I ran 0ga wire off the battery. You'll need about 6 inches of whatever two colors you want. I ordered 6in of red and got 12, and I ordered 6in of silver and got 18!
5) Coming off of the battery terminal covers, there's a couple options you can go with. The 0ga cable can be conneted to the terminal in 3 different ways: 1) using 0ga
set screw ring terminals . I used these, but I had to grind down the inside lip on them because they wouldn't sit flush with the terminal. I emailed Bill about it and he said he'd look into that, but he hadn't heard anything like that before. Also the negative post put a little bitty nipple on my hood because the screw on top of the terminal sticks up just high enough. I put a Zaino applicator pad on top of it like a cushion and it's ok now. 2) Instead of the set screw terminal, you can use regular 0ga crimp connectors, which are $1.75 each instead of $6.25 for set screw. The crimp connectors are thinner where they make contact with the terminal, so the screw shouldn't stick up nearly as high and it shouldn't make contact with the hood. 3) Don't use and ring terminals at all! The battery terminals have a 0ga and a 4ga outputs, so you don't really need them, but this will make your cables and everything look kinda crooked-the ring terminal screw is in the center, so I used that.
Ok, so now the fun part: installation! This is really pretty easy; I've done it to both of my cars and to another friend's Mitsi Galant.
1) Take out the old battery.
2) Cut off the old terminals that were connected to the battery. (Say bye bye warranty!) Strip the wires. Make sure you keep these straight for + and -! you really don't want to switch them around, you'll be very sad. I used a cutting wheel on my Dremel to chop off the old terminals.
3) Remove your intake, it makes working on the back of the battery case a million times easier!
See:
Make sure you wear your dirty Independant hat backwards and the cheap Men In Black II watch you got out of a Kid's Meal from Burger King last summer.
4) The power distribution blocks are the hardest part. Set the new battery inside the box and push it as far back and towards the passenger side as you can; away from the headlight so it'll be a little further from the hood. With the battery where you want it, you can look on the back of the case and line up where you need to put the distribution blocks. On the back of the battery case, there are some ridges for ridgitity, use short wood screws through those to hold the distribution blocks. Make sure the screws aren't too long, or you'll have trouble with them touching the battery. When you connect the wires to the proper block on each side, it's very hard and takes some finaggling to get all of them in the right places. Once you've got 'em all in, make sure they are nice and tight so they don't slip out. In Steve's case, I suggested he hook up the amp cable on the bottom of the power block-it's an 0ga output, so you may need to really tighten the screw or even fold the amp cable over so it's twice as thick. You're using 4ga, right? I can't remember. Make sure you have enough slack to route the cable around to where you can get to your fuseholder.
Positive side:
5) Set your new battery back inside the case. Leave the little plastic cups on the battery terminals so you don't spark anything. Take your 0ga cable and strip it off enough to sit straight into the power block on the back. Bend the cable down so you can see how long you need to cut it. It's a little less than 6 inches, but that'll vary depending on what kind of ring terminals you're using or not using. Cut the cable as long as you need it, you don't want any slack because that 0ga is friggin hard to bend! Strip the other end of the cable and screw them into the power blocks first. Then attach the battery terminal covers to the cable using whichever ring terminals you choose. Once they are connected, go back and make sure everything is set and secure; you don't want anything to come loose. Now connect the two terminal covers to the battery, being careful not to electrocute yourself because that hurts.
Now you're big pimpin!
Oh yeah, one more thing-all of the pics of the Blue Zetec car were taken almost exactly 26 hours before I totalled it.
Don't total your car after you do this.
