relocating battery

[streetdreams420]

okay question I relocated my battery and ever sense my battery dosen't seem to charge as fast or as much, I have a volt meter and before when the battery was under hood the gauge was always around like 14 when car was not running/ now that I relocated it, it sits at like 12 and goes to like 14 after the car is running for a bit, anyone no wtf??oh ya same battery never changed and i'm running 4 gauge wiring

[FourthGenHatch]

4AWG might be to small, I know I used 2AWG on mine and it works fine.

[streetdreams420]

thanks bro i'll give that a try can't hurt any to put in bigger wire hopfully it works

[ci5ic]

Yeah, I wouldn't run anything smaller than 2AWG which is what I used to relocated the battery...

One thing though is that when the car is off, it's supposed to measure around 12V, and when you turn the car on, the voltage should be around 14V, so it's probably not a problem that you need to worry about.

Another thing you may want to do (which I did) was run heavier guage wire to the starter and alternator...

[streetdreams420]

thanks again ci5ic thats the second time today you have helped me out, i'm going to say fuck it and use my 4 gauge for all the wiring like starter and shit. and just get 2 guage for the battery, oh ya when I had the battery under the hood the gauge stayed just under 14 even with the car off, but I know what you mean

[ci5ic]

Originally posted by streetdreams420
thanks again ci5ic thats the second time today you have helped me out, i'm going to say fuck it and use my 4 gauge for all the wiring like starter and shit. and just get 2 guage for the battery, oh ya when I had the battery under the hood the gauge stayed just under 14 even with the car off, but I know what you mean

Now that I think about it, it could also depend on where you're measuring the voltage from...

Since you had the battery up front, the wires were relatively short, but by increasing the length of the primary wire, there may be some additional resistance which would cause a difference of voltage depending on where you put the volt-meter probes... Just for fun, turn the car off, check the voltage in the engine bay, then check the voltage in the back at the battery, then do the same thing with the engine on and see how much the voltage readings differ from front to back... I'd be curious to know, I never bothered to measure mine.

[Stali08]

how about the path the wire takes, like if it would take a lot of twists and turns and not just a straight path, would tha effect the voltage?

[streetdreams420]

good call ci5ic I never thought about that and I did run a whole new wire to the battery and it's like three feet longer, i'm gonna check that out tommorrow,

[ci5ic]

Originally posted by Stali08
how about the path the wire takes, like if it would take a lot of twists and turns and not just a straight path, would tha effect the voltage?

Not likely... If there was a big coil in the wire, it might act like an inductor, which would affect the voltage a little, but not enough to really do anything...

Originally posted by streetdreams420
good call ci5ic I never thought about that and I did run a whole new wire to the battery and it's like three feet longer, i'm gonna check that out tommorrow,

Where did you relocate the battery to? I was under the impression that you relocated it to the back of the car, but an extra 3 feet of wire isn't enough to get back there, so I'm a little confused.

[91civicDXdude]

i relocated the battery to the hatch and used 4 gauge wire.. i've never had a problem.

I used my 4 gauge amp wire that was already ran, hooked the battery to the rear end of it, and used one of those stereo setup "power splitters" and ran 8 gauge wire to my fusebox and starter.

[ci5ic]

Originally posted by 91civicDXdude
i relocated the battery to the hatch and used 4 gauge wire.. i've never had a problem.

I used my 4 gauge amp wire that was already ran, hooked the battery to the rear end of it, and used one of those stereo setup "power splitters" and ran 8 gauge wire to my fusebox and starter.

That's pretty much what I did, but I used 2AWG Accel wire from Summit Racing and a 0AWG ground. Ran the 2AWG to the starter and the alternator too... starts easy as hell.

[streetdreams420]

sorry ci5ic I ment it is like 3 4 feet longer then what I had before lets say its like 7 feet full just guessing

[Trancebot]

since you guys are on the subject i was wondering does relocating the battary to the rear on a fwd car help performance in the twists with out sacrificing traction?

i assumed that's why you guys relocated for better weight distrubtion?

[FourthGenHatch]

I have about the most detailed write up about this on my site that you will find anywhere...

http://www.fourthgenhatch.com/battery.html

[XxLuckyLisaxX]

damn dude you have hella how-tos on your site, i didnt look at any of the others did you write them all up yourself? if you did mad props dude for real everyone should check it out