Battery Relocation
Written by RedIntake (Kenny)
www.angelfire.com/ultra/scort/index.html
(suggest reading entire instructions before starting)
Remove the battery terminals, J-bolts, and the battery from under the hood. Remove the battery tray that the battery sits on by unscrewing the four 10mm bolts. Clean the battery with degreaser or terminal cleaner. Remove the ground terminal and attach the ground wire running to the vehicle to the chassis. Be sure to scrape up the chassis a little, so you get a good ground. Use Rustoleum or rubberizer to coat the connection so that it doesn't rust. Buy a sealed (marine) battery box from AutoZone (about $15), and some big, copper, multi-wire from Home Depot. The stuff that I bought carried 900 amps, I bought 15ft at like $.29/ft. Mount the sealed batterybox in the trunk to put the battery in. You can run a tube from the box
outside of the car through a hole in the trunk floor to give the deadly, explosive Hydrogen fumes a way to escape outside. Put new terminals on the battery inside of the battery box. Run the wires through a hole in the box, sealing it afterward with RTV gasket sealant. Ground the negative wire to the chassis in the trunk with some of the wire that you bought. Coat this connection with paint or rubberizer also. Run the positive wire through the vehicle, through the firewall in the passenger's side footboard under the dash. There is a huge rubber seal surrounding the main wire cluster running from the engine bay and interior of car. Slice a slit in this rubber grommet and run the wire through it. It will seal up nicely afterward around the
wire. Run the wire inside of the engine bay, against the firewall to avoid melting it from hot engine parts. Attach the positive wire from the battery to the original positive vehicle wire. Don't just twist them and put a little tape. This will require a big crimp to avoid too much resistance. You can buy 8 or 10 guage wire crimp connectors from Home Depot in the electrical section (about $2.50 a piece). If you have all of the wires connected good, you should be able to start up the vehicle just like normal. A few things to check if you have problems:
*Will not start at all: Check the terminals, make sure they are tight, check
the wire grounds, they have to have good, clean metal connections for
pushing 650 amps required to crank your Escort. Check your fuses, interior
and engine bay. If you connected something while it was shorting, you
probably blew a fuse.
*Wires get warm: This is bad, soon the wires will melt, that is if your
battery power lasts long enough to keep running. This can be caused by two
things. If the wire only heats up while the car is running , then you bought
wire that is too small for carrying high amperage. Replace the wire with
bigger, higher amperage wire. If you are using wire with a smaller guage
number than 8 (the bigger the wire, the smaller the number), and still
having problems, then you are probably using the wrong TYPE of wire. I used
8 guage 900 amp low-resistance multi-strand copper wire. On the other hand,
if the wire heats up while the car is not running also, then you have a
short. Check all the way along the positive wire, looking for a place where
is rubs with the chassis.
*Battery drains: There are many reasons that this could happen, but it's
likely that it's caused by small wire, high resistance wire, or shorting.
Check if the wire gets hot or melts, this indicates that it is probably a
problem with power moving through the wire, because it is not big enough, or
too restrictive, to carry that much power.
Written by RedIntake (Kenny)
www.angelfire.com/ultra/scort/index.html
(suggest reading entire instructions before starting)
Remove the battery terminals, J-bolts, and the battery from under the hood. Remove the battery tray that the battery sits on by unscrewing the four 10mm bolts. Clean the battery with degreaser or terminal cleaner. Remove the ground terminal and attach the ground wire running to the vehicle to the chassis. Be sure to scrape up the chassis a little, so you get a good ground. Use Rustoleum or rubberizer to coat the connection so that it doesn't rust. Buy a sealed (marine) battery box from AutoZone (about $15), and some big, copper, multi-wire from Home Depot. The stuff that I bought carried 900 amps, I bought 15ft at like $.29/ft. Mount the sealed batterybox in the trunk to put the battery in. You can run a tube from the box
outside of the car through a hole in the trunk floor to give the deadly, explosive Hydrogen fumes a way to escape outside. Put new terminals on the battery inside of the battery box. Run the wires through a hole in the box, sealing it afterward with RTV gasket sealant. Ground the negative wire to the chassis in the trunk with some of the wire that you bought. Coat this connection with paint or rubberizer also. Run the positive wire through the vehicle, through the firewall in the passenger's side footboard under the dash. There is a huge rubber seal surrounding the main wire cluster running from the engine bay and interior of car. Slice a slit in this rubber grommet and run the wire through it. It will seal up nicely afterward around the
wire. Run the wire inside of the engine bay, against the firewall to avoid melting it from hot engine parts. Attach the positive wire from the battery to the original positive vehicle wire. Don't just twist them and put a little tape. This will require a big crimp to avoid too much resistance. You can buy 8 or 10 guage wire crimp connectors from Home Depot in the electrical section (about $2.50 a piece). If you have all of the wires connected good, you should be able to start up the vehicle just like normal. A few things to check if you have problems:
*Will not start at all: Check the terminals, make sure they are tight, check
the wire grounds, they have to have good, clean metal connections for
pushing 650 amps required to crank your Escort. Check your fuses, interior
and engine bay. If you connected something while it was shorting, you
probably blew a fuse.
*Wires get warm: This is bad, soon the wires will melt, that is if your
battery power lasts long enough to keep running. This can be caused by two
things. If the wire only heats up while the car is running , then you bought
wire that is too small for carrying high amperage. Replace the wire with
bigger, higher amperage wire. If you are using wire with a smaller guage
number than 8 (the bigger the wire, the smaller the number), and still
having problems, then you are probably using the wrong TYPE of wire. I used
8 guage 900 amp low-resistance multi-strand copper wire. On the other hand,
if the wire heats up while the car is not running also, then you have a
short. Check all the way along the positive wire, looking for a place where
is rubs with the chassis.
*Battery drains: There are many reasons that this could happen, but it's
likely that it's caused by small wire, high resistance wire, or shorting.
Check if the wire gets hot or melts, this indicates that it is probably a
problem with power moving through the wire, because it is not big enough, or
too restrictive, to carry that much power.