Track Battery

[Siestarider]

Santa dropped this Odyssey Extreme PC 680 under my tree so I could relocate to spare tire well. So I thought maybe I had better make sure it works up front before doing all that relocation. Turns out it fits stock battery location, terminals, tie down, etc.

Second pic shows with a rubber shim to secure stock hold down. I ran the bolts and washers that came with it, plus a larger flat washer, into terminal tops over stock connections just for extra security.

OEM battery 2.5 years old now, and I had another use for it, so will run the Odyssey for DD in stock location for a while. At less than $10/lb saved, and ease of installation, maybe it will suit others. Not enough room in stock box to lay it down, that would have been too good to be true.

Having read a lot of lightweight battery threads, including RAAM's here from 2014, seems no one has found an inexpensive way to loose much more weight than this, assuming it works.


16 lbs to go to break 2600 with half a tank of fuel.

 

[kevinatfms]

If anyone wants one of these I have one sitting from an old mustang project. Let me know and we can work shipping and such.

OP, great mod and good weight reduction without the headaches.

 

[Sourskittle]

They are around $108 on ebay. They have 1/2 the cold cranking amps of the stock battery. That put me off a bit. But I was also thinking about a battery in the back of car so I could steal more room for a 2.5gal methanol tank...

Instead, I ordered a custom tank to fit where the air box is because my tank wouldn't fit.

The parts list was adding up... So I kept the stock battery

 

[Sourskittle]

Want to add my friend uses them in turbo 2.2L omni's and 2.4L srt4's, so... It SHOULD work fine in our 1.6L ( despite high compression ).

16lbs weight loss is also twice what you'd save with a carbon hood for 1/6 the money

 

[Siestarider]

I first used the German sealed gel prequel to Odyssey in boats, and Odyssey's version (PC 1200) since, have had gel boat batteries last 10 years and more. Tracking should be cake compared to pounding in an outboard across the gulf stream and back, and periods of intense use followed by weeks or months with no use at all.

I think that cold cranking amp # has little applicability in Fla. I don't recall the temp CCA is measured at, but we don't see it down here.

However, if the battery does not do everything a stock battery does, I will raise the flag. And find something better to mount in rear.

 

[airjor13]

Nice, where did you purchase the battery with the posts? Thanks

 

[Sourskittle]

 

[airjor13]

Thanks for that, I found them for about $100 shipped 2-day on Amazon, I guess my question [MENTION=1391]Siestarider[/MENTION] is are those the SAE battery posts you used for the Odyssey battery?

 

[Siestarider]

Yes, the one I ordered came with posts that fit stock terminals, plus bolts that thread into top of posts. I think I paid $10 more for the extreme duty version with posts.

Don't believe extreme duty is required for car, but the posts sure came in handy for test mounting in stock location. Fires up fine so far.

 

[Wimp Lo]

That looks pretty cool, I thought the only way to make it fit is the M Sport R2 battery kit which Team O'Neil want $$$ for.

I was looking at the Odessy battery web site and seeing what else they have.

The one that seems cool is the PC535 because the terminals are switched so it could be laid on its side and have the terminals in a similar place. Its also lighter.

It would take a chopped battery box and battery hold down.

What do you think of that idea?

 

[yackyz]

Awesome thread, but I'm with skittles on this one. 170 CCA seems like it'd get me stuck with a click when I'd least want to.

 

[JPGC]

Santa dropped this Odyssey Extreme PC 680 under my tree so I could relocate to spare tire well. So I thought maybe I had better make sure it works up front before doing all that relocation. Turns out it fits stock battery location, terminals, tie down, etc.

Second pic shows with a rubber shim to secure stock hold down. I ran the bolts and washers that came with it, plus a larger flat washer, into terminal tops over stock connections just for extra security.

OEM battery 2.5 years old now, and I had another use for it, so will run the Odyssey for DD in stock location for a while. At less than $10/lb saved, and ease of installation, maybe it will suit others. Not enough room in stock box to lay it down, that would have been too good to be true.

Having read a lot of lightweight battery threads, including RAAM's here from 2014, seems no one has found an inexpensive way to loose much more weight than this, assuming it works.


16 lbs to go to break 2600 with half a tank of fuel.

Thanks for sharing. I've consideredone of these previously but didn't want to be a guinea pig for it as I haven't seen a whole lot of FiSTs or FoSTs with one of these. Definitely keep us updated on your results.

 

[Sourskittle]

Awesome thread, but I'm with skittles on this one. 170 CCA seems like it'd get me stuck with a click when I'd least want to.

And another thing for me, is at the time ( and maybe in the future too ), I was thinking it would be relocated to the rear of the car. Between the weaker battery ( by nature ) and the 12-15ft of power cable resistance, I wasn't too crazy about it either. But... I have an idea.

Battery in the rear, capacitor in the front..... ^*****minds blown******^ lol

Should be enough to alway jolt the starter to life and has an added benefit of upping system voltage just a bit. May/should also stop the head lights from dimming when you use the power windows and things like that.

My battery was in the back on my jeep wrangler I swapped a EFI mustang 5.0L engine into. I used a cap to supply power to the starter and warn winch since they had big, sudden amp draws. Caps are now pretty cheap.

 

[yackyz]

And another thing for me, is at the time ( and maybe in the future too ), I was thinking it would be relocated to the rear of the car. Between the weaker battery ( by nature ) and the 12-15ft of power cable resistance, I wasn't too crazy about it either. But... I have an idea.

Battery in the rear, capacitor in the front..... ^*****minds blown******^ lol

Should be enough to alway jolt the starter to life and has an added benefit of upping system voltage just a bit. May/should also stop the head lights from dimming when you use the power windows and things like that.

My battery was in the back on my jeep wrangler I swapped a EFI mustang 5.0L engine into. I used a cap to supply power to the starter and warn winch since they had big, sudden amp draws. Caps are now pretty cheap.

This is a really good idea for high stress electrical draws while it's running. If this battery can consistently start the car, a cap is a great idea. But I'm confused as to how the cap will help start the vehicle, which is my main concern, especially since when the car is off the cap usually just "bleeds" out the rest of the voltage. But I'm referencing car audio capacitors in specific so I'm not sure if their are variations.

 

[JPGC]

The thing is.. A smaller battery is to reduce weight. Moving the battery to the rear is good for better weight balance. Problem is, moving a small batter to the rear, adding a cap, etc really kind of negates the point cause you are adding weight with the wiring, cap, etc. since this battery is so light, why not just leave it in the front if it works fine...unless you need more room under the hood.

 

[Sourskittle]

The thing is.. A smaller battery is to reduce weight. Moving the battery to the rear is good for better weight balance. Problem is, moving a small batter to the rear, adding a cap, etc really kind of negates the point cause you are adding weight with the wiring, cap, etc. since this battery is so light, why not just leave it in the front if it works fine...unless you need more room under the hood.

I thought for that after I posted it, but didn't have time to mention that part. Between 15ft of 4awg cable, and a cap, your right... More failure points and not saving much weight. You would improve weight distribution slightly.

I was doing it before room under the hood... But, like I said, I got a custom tank coming now.

Caps don't discharge when they are hooked parallel in the system with the battery. Electric motors ( like a starter) uses 6times as many amps at its first turn-on as when its already running. That first kick pulls the most power ( like when bass hits ), and shocks the battery voltage down and hurts it feelings. If you prevent that surge from coming from the battery ( using the cap as a buffer ), it helps the battery a lot.

I was told recently that a lot of race cars are using ONLY caps and no battery now. Caps start the car, alternator keeps it running. Caps are much lighter than batteries obviously.

 

[FORZDA 2]

Good luck with the small battery, you'll need it... The luck that is. If used on a pure race car with no ancillary accessories like electric power steering, electric vacuum pump for power brakes, electric windows, electric starter motor, electric AC clutch, electric nav/sound system, etc. it should work just fine.

However, the FiST is a direct injection engine meaning the fuel pressure is ~2000 psi and the voltage required to reliably fire the injectors is usually around 100VDC, not the typical 70 psi and 12VDC required of port injectors. Even when the lightweight battery starts out fully charged you will soon notice the low current/voltage problems as odd misfires, poor AFR control and timing advance/retard as the ECU tries to keep everything running within optimum parameters.

If you insist on the lightweight battery, I recommend two of them connected in parallel to provide more capacity for a fully-equipped street car. You still save some weight, but maintain enough capacity to allow the car/systems to function reliably.

 

[Siestarider]

Just did a little internet research, I suspect the largest failure risk for the Odyssey is heat in the engine compartment, it is not supposed to be used above 113 F.

Temps around here will be moderate until mid spring. If it works up front until then, I will move it to spare tire well. One of the battery's strong points is very high pulse (5 Sec) amperage delivery. Car typically starts in 2 sec. Continuous key off current draw is probably around 15 ma, but I drive it most days, so that should be ok too.

Its an experiment, if it fails to operate satisfactorily up front in the Fist, I have another use for it. Two days in, cannot tell any difference between it and OEM.

 

[Wimp Lo]

The way electronics are rated, the part doesn't stop working at 114°, it just just won't meet its published specs in some manner.

For cold starts it shouldn't be a problem. Hot starts might be hard on it but the load through a battery is very intermittent.

If our engines had a start stop system for fuel economy, the battery would have hot starts all the time and be much more highly stressed. The 1.6 EcoBoost Fusion has that as an option so if you are interested, look at how its battery was changed.

 

[Sourskittle]

My buddy that uses on his srt4 and turbo omni's also parks them on a battery tender. When you have 9 viper, a hemi cudda, and tons of other epic/classic cars, you end up with a lot of battery tenders and the 4 turbo cars sit a lot, lol.
He actually has a challenger drag pack that has a viper V10 in it and the battery went bad ON a battery tender.... Must be a hard life to suffer such things, lol.