THSCC Forums

Posting this for a friend. I'll summarize and forward to him (he's not yet a member, but planning on becoming one after the newbie school on Sunday).

i recently purchased a 84 vw gti that i'll be setting up for street and
occational autox use. the battery tray in the engine compartment is
corroded away pretty badly so the battery doesn't have anything to hold it
securely. since i have to take action anyway, i'd like to mount it in the
middle/rear of the car (the rear seats, capreting, etc have been removed).

- do i need a special type of battery? the current one is pretty old, so
a replacement is in the cards no matter what.

- how to properly wire it up

- best location (behind front seats, in the spare tire well)?

- how to secure it (do special bracket kits for this exist?

- will this affect my ability to pass NC inspection?

thanks for any tips/suggestions!

jason

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2003 Mazda Protege5 (TheCheat)
2003 Subaru Impreza WRX (the wife's car, which she lets me race)

To stay legal for SP/ST he'll need to make sure it's behind where the back seat was. In an ideal world I'd mount the battery on the passenger floor behind the seat in a marine battery box. Unfortunately this is illegal in most anything but SM or higher.

Thanks to update/backdate most people feel that the seat and rear carpet removal is legal in SP -- very early base Rabbits had no carpet at all and there were instructions in the glovebox manual on how to remove the seat.

I don't recall if the battery trays on 84's is bolted in. If it's not he won't be able to cut it out.

For an almost overwhelming amount of information, have your friend subscribe to the vw-autox e-mail list. It is at vwautox@yahoogroups.com

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

Lots of guys have moved the battery to the hatch area. And in the case of a hatchback behind the passenger seat is considered not the passenger compartment also.

A common mounting system many VW guys use is in conjunction with a rear strut bar. There is actually now a guy who sells rear strut bars for MKI VW's that has a battery mount as part of the design.

Cool, thanks for the info. I'm passing it along to him.

Adam, do you have any links to that strut bar? To any how-tos about relocating the battery?

Thanks guys!

Mike

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2003 Mazda Protege5 (TheCheat)
2003 Subaru Impreza WRX (the wife's car, which she lets me race)

This a thread by the same guy who builds the ones I was talking about;

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1266504

This is for the normal bar but IM or email him and he'll let you know about the other one.

Cool.

Thanks again!

-Mike

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2003 Mazda Protege5 (TheCheat)
2003 Subaru Impreza WRX (the wife's car, which she lets me race)

Hey Kevin,

There is a section in the 1976 Rabbit Owners manual that reads...

To remove seat back

Unscrew hand wheels at both sides of the seat back.
Lift seat back with strap in center of seat.
Disconnect straps between seat and and seat back.

This sounds like it might be legal to remove the seat back but not the seat bottom. Has this ever been protested? I think this would be the only way to get a difinitive answer weather this is leagal.

Not much gain from a weight standpoint, but sure would make transporting wheels/tires to and from events easier for those of us who still dive their cars.

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Jim Wray
#4 ITB Wraycer Wrabbit

I've moved mine. It's actually in the spare tire well, under the spare.

You'll need
#2 welding wire
non-crimp ends, solder filled. heat with torch, then slowly insert your wire
bulkhead through-mount to avoid welding your cable to your firewall
adel clamps every 8-12 inches to remove chafing
something to hold your battery down.

I used an optima battery because duh, they're awesome. Plus I needed to mount it sideways to fit under the rally tire.

You can talk out your behind for days, but as far as the best location, hard to say unless you get the car on scales. Anywhere back there will probably do.

Anders

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Lina Racing: As Seen On Radio

I've always thought that you want to try and move weight as close to the geometric center of the car as possible (assuming you're turning both left and right). Unless one corner is way off balance weight-wise, putting weight further away from the center just gives you more mass to turn which is almost always a bad thing.

I would vote for the center of the trunk/hatch area and as far forward as possible towards the center of the car. You can always use corner-weighting to balance the car and if that isn't an option, it probably doesn't matter much anyway.

Jim

Speaking of which, don't suppose one could arrange to borrow/use you corner scales?

Remember, you have to move it *further* away from the center than it already is to have a decrease in handling. Don't know where it is on this particular car, but many are right behind a headlight, which is about as bad as you can get. Move it anywhere you want and it's still as good as stock as far as the rotational intertia is concerned.



Moving a 30 pound battery rearward 10 feet is similar to moving your 300 pound engine back 1 foot. Corner weighting won't help accomplish stuff like that.

Often it comes down to "so, where can I figure out how to bolt this thing down to, anyway?"

Anders

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Lina Racing: As Seen On Radio

Remember he is talking about a rabbit. Its barely 10 bumper to bumper. And yes in rabbits the battery is drivers side right behind the core support up high.

Right, but if you’re going to move it anyway you might as well put in a place that’s going to hurt you the least amount if possible.



Right again, corner weighting will never help with front to back (or side to side) balancing. The point I was trying to make is that in most cars are light in one corner or another. In most cases, the right rear is light and “intuition” tells most people that it would be a good place to stick the battery. I think it is better to put the battery in the center-most position possible to keep down rotational inertia and worry about balancing out corner weights by another means. As always, it’s just a rule of thumb and YMMV but it usually goes against what most people wind up doing or what they think is most logical.

Jim

Send me a PM and I'm sure we can work something out. Just don't tell anybody.

Jim

I was asked for more specifics. So, here:


#2 welding cable
holox welding supply, morrisville 544.9699
a good length to start with is the length of
your car plus the width. you will be amazed
how much cable it takes to snake around everything.

Heat shrink.
mcmaster.com
for something as serious as a battery, I like 3-1 high shrink like:
"Polyolefin Adhesive-Lined Thin-Wall Tubing"
size for your cable

Crimpless lugs for battery
mcmaster.com item 7908k42
1 of these, for cable that attaches to battery
hold end in a vice. heat with propane or oxy torch.
slowly insert stripped cable. let cool.

Crimpless lugs for bolts
mcmaster.com item 7908k52
3 of these.
one for the firewall end of battery cable to firewall.
two for cable inside the engine bay

battery end cover
mcmaster.com item 69875k85

cable end covers
mcmaster.com item 69875k85
you need three

adel clamps
aka "Rubber-Cushioned Steel Loop Straps"
mcmaster.com , size for your cable.
use one every 8-12 inches

through-firewall connector
rebcoracing.com
http://www.rebcoperformance.com/catalog ... 5&catid=10
item 1601505
you'll need a hole saw for this. you can get a metal/wood
hole saw at ace hardware.

ground strap, braided
advance auto parts
something like this:
http://modelthaven.com/ng/T5049B.jpg

I should make a faq and put it on my web page....

For the actual "how do I hold down the battery" part, you'll have
to come up with something on your own. I used 5/16" threaded rod.

Anders

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Lina Racing: As Seen On Radio