propellerhead

iTrader: (3)

Well, I decided to pull the trigger and purchase the a Buschur Stage 3 kit for my Evo. For those that have been living under a rock, one of the components of this kit is a mini battery. The mini battery clears alot of space in the engine compartment, eliminates some weight from the front end and is a necessary prerequisite to install the upper I/C pipe.

Kit Contents:
- 800 CCA mini-battery (appears to be a XSTATIC BATCAP Model 800)
- "CNC machined" .010 aluminum battery tray
- Two (2) stainless steel hold-down bolts
- Stamped stainless steel hold-down strap
- Two (2) zinc plated wingnuts
- Two (2) zinc plated 1/4" washers

Installation:

Tools needed:
10mm combination wrench
12mm combination wrench
10mm socket and drive
12mm socket and drive
large flat bladed screwdriver

Time required: <1 hour (even less if the battery posts were the right size)

Despite the complete lack of any sort of instructions or diagrams the installation is actually fairly simple, however you may find yourself making a few guesses here and there.

Obviously the first step is to remove the OEM battery and battery tray. If you've got the tools and you've replaced a bettery in the past, this process should take you less than 10 minutes. Installing the new aluminum "tray" is also simple, requiring the reuse of two of the bolts used on the OEM tray. Now is a good time to make sure that you've installed the hold down bolts in the new battery tray before you bolt it into place. Note: the new tray will not fit properly with the factory airbox in place. I haven't had a chance to fully noodle through the design but I think some simple modifications to the tray design would allow the kit to be installed without the airbox needing to be removed. However, I haven't installed my upper I/C pipe yet in order to validate my idea.

Once the battery tray is in place you can then mount the battery itself. After some fiddling and diddling you'll discover that the correct orientation is to have the positive (+) terminal of the battery towards the front of the car. The only reason for this is that the ground wire bolts to a grounding point on the strut tower. Ideally if the ground lead were long enough you could orient the postive terminal towards the firewall, eliminating the need to stretch the positive lead. Install the hold-down strap and secure it with the wing nuts. I skipped the washers provided since they were the wrong size. I'll use the proper size washers when I can get ahold of them. Since the battery is so snug gainst the electric box, you may have to push the battery away in order to spin the wing nut. Install the ground lead to the negative (-) terminal on the battery. I found that I had to really spread the connector wide open in order to get it to fit over the post. In my opinion the **** should just fit and it shouldn't take 15 minutes of fiddling and worrying if you're going to break the aluminum terminal clamp in the process.

Once I had the negative cable attached I next turned to getting the positive cable attached. This was literally a bit of a stretch. I found I had to remove any of the support brackets remaining after the removal of the OEM battery tray and massage the harness to get the slack needed to reach the terminal post. Once I got the slack I needed, the terminal clamp slid right on, go figure.

The battery seems to perform okay. I've only started the engine cold once. I did notice that while parked with the engine running and the stereo cranked, the interior light would dim to the beat of the music. Of course I'm running a 500W aftermarket stereo system so your results may vary.

Conclusion:
Personally if I were to do it over again AND if I had the time, I'd relocate the OEM battery to the trunk. The $225 price, while perhaps only marginally profitable for Buschur Racing and it's distributors, is a bit steep for what it gets you. The street price on the battery is ~$170. Add another $20 for the aluminum tray and you're up to $190. That doesn't leave much margin. Regardless, improved documentation, fit and finish (especially fit) would go a long way to improving the value proposition. In my case, the three to four hours of time saved justified the price paid. My time is valuable to me. If you're on a tight budget or have alot of free time on you hands, consider piecing your own mini battery or relocation kit together.

Ratings on scale of 0 to 10 (best):
Instructions & Documentation: 0
Engineering Quality: 8
Fabrication Quality: 9 (better than most of you will ever do with a jig saw and drill at home)
Installation Ease: 9 (the cable and terminal clamp situation was very frustrating)
Value: 6 (this really depends on how much your time is worth)

en1gma19

iTrader: (23)

very informative and thorough. good write up

runny_yolk

Thanks for the write-up. I'm looking for a mini-battery solution, but is there a way to buy a battery that's less than $225? That seems really steep...

Guru_Del

iTrader: (5)

i was doing a battery install and i found the terminals to be too snug until i flipped them over and then they fit like a glove, there are two sides to every terminal clamp so test both sides.

propellerhead

iTrader: (3)

The price of the BATCAP battery is what drives the price up. As I mentioned, the street price is around $170. Sure you can find lesser priced mini-batteries but I doubt they are 800CCAmps. The ones I've seen are 580CCA and are priced at less than $100.

I'm sure a cheaper trunk relocation kit can be built. I think when I priced the parts I needed the total was around $100. This assumes of course that you can re-use the OEM battery in the trunk. The big factor for me was the time it would take to fabricate the tray for the rear and the time it would take to run the 0 gauge wire from front to back. 6 hours is not out of the realm of possibility.

ob4

iTrader: (5)

i got the diy small battery kit:

cheapest odyessy hawker pc680 (680 cca) - 74.59 + 10 shipping
http://www.sunnbattery.com/item.html...0&PRID=1292858

cheapest SAE terminals - 12.95 + ?? shipping
http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?p=ODY-3217-0006

modified stock plastic battery tray - $0
stock holddown bolts - $0
modified aluminium bracket from home depot - less than $3

end result, 25lb weight savings for around 100 bucks

propellerhead

iTrader: (3)

Take a peek. There not much room for interpretation with these types of clamps. I know of the terminal clamps that you speak of. They're usually lead and are quite malleable.

Guru_Del

iTrader: (5)

i have now done 2 trunk relocations and 6 hours is possible if you are a complete spoon-handed dweeb, but more like 2 hours of work.

Either way great write up.

propellerhead

iTrader: (3)

That's a slick install. Turn it on a 90 degree and you'd have room for the Buschur upper I/C pipe to squeeze by.

propellerhead

iTrader: (3)

Then mark me down as a spoon handed dweeb. Either that or I must be really picky about how I build my ****.

954DRGSR

iTrader: (2)

Here are some relocation kit options if you don't want to go the DIY route:

http://www.spmotorsports.com/ATCmisc...ery_reloc.html

LDB

I put that stuff into the trunk over a week ago and the stupid battery is still under the hood and the stuff is still sitting in the trunk... if it doesn't move in the next week or two I'm going to have to do it myself.

stvbreal

iTrader: (17)

Optima battery DIY for 100 bucks. It's roughly 8 degrees here now and the car still cranks.
Well it feels like 8, but realy 20.

alex_alex

iTrader: (7)

stvbreal, can you give us more info on this kit, and some install pointers if theres anything unsual?

stvbreal

iTrader: (17)

I used the factory battery mount and cut it to fit the smaller one. I used tie-straps to hold the battrery in place. I cut small slits in the mount and fed the straps through them and secured the battery to the mount. The battery weighs 16 and the 2 tie-straps can hold at least 60. Slight movement but you realy have to move the thing by hand. I tossed the car around a bit when I was done. It isn't going anywhere.