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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

The definitive battery thread


Ian C

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Originally posted by Christian

I had a yellow top Optima which lasted about 2 years.

Then I had a red top Optima which lasted just over a year.

Now I have a normal battery from Sextons that's lasted about 6 months so far with no sign of dying yet - best value for money IMO.

so you better off with a heavy duty battery and take your chance. if a normal battery can last a fair while and say up to £50 do you think its better just replacing them when they play up. what sort of prices are the optima range?

 

i would love to know whats involved relocating battery to boot area.

 

is it not just a case of extending the original cables to boot. or do you have to re make some new leads up.

 

matt how much is the cable and connectors to relocate to boot area.

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Wouldn't normally recommend Halfrauds, but they're batteries have either 3 or 5 year guarantees. We had problems with a battery that was a good couple of years old and they swapped it for a spanky new one - no questions !

 

Just don't lose the receipt, I was STUNNED I hadn't lost mine ;)

 

Matt

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Originally posted by MONKEYmark

if a normal battery can last a fair while and say up to £50 do you think its better just replacing them when they play up. what sort of prices are the optima range?

I'm definitely going to try the standard battery thing.

 

If I can get away with £50 a year and replace it as soon as it doesn't survive a 2-week holiday in the garage I'll accept that as part of the annual cost of having a Supe that spends half her time in the garage.

 

Optimas are about £150 or more I believe and only have a 1-year warranty (I'm sure about that).

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Does battery power effect the performance of the car at all then, or is it just the starting of it etc...

 

I would not mind getting a new one, as having mine on just for a little while drains the battery to a point where it does not quite have enough power to turn the engine over.

 

Any more info on batteries on performance etc. I dont fancy putting one in the boot.

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New Battery

Something I am going to have to do in the next few weeks. Takes a few seconds turning over before starting. Battery for sure. Changed the last one only 9 months ago or so.

J-spec......small battery poles

Is it worth buying come bigger clamps.Theres an ICE shop selling some stainless ones( bling bling) , european sizes, so I can fit a larger battery.

Anyone any opinions on the deep cycle batteries like the ones that are used for big ICE installs? These the optima ones mentioned previously? Quoting €250.00 for these here.

John

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  • 7 months later...

Just cut off the crappy small terminals to re-fit bigger ones as I have just got hold of a red top Optima. Unfortunately the new battery has its terminals in a slightly different posistion to the small crap battery I am replacing.. Therefore, any ideas where is the best place is to extend the cables from, ie from some juntion box somewhere, or try to strip the wires where they are now and just add a bit more length to the wires so they reach?

 

If its easier to just extend the original wires a bit, any ideas how to join two battery cables togeather, as they are damn thick. And the posistive has two very thick wires which need to run off the cable which is going to be connected to the + on the battery.

 

Had a look around a few car shops today to see what I could use to join the cables.. They had nothing :( Only thing which came close was these fancy things from Halfords they use on Audio installs. Big wire feed going in, and quite big wire feed out.. 1 into 4. But holes look big enough to take the battery cable's girth :) - Any thoughts on using these things to solve the problem?

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If someone wanted the ultimate battery,I would suggest using an aircraft battery,they are alkaline ,made up of cells of 1.2 volts nominal,they are aerobatic ie will not spill ,have immense current capability (over1000amps with ease)and will not drop off voltage with load,the down side is they are very very expensive £300 a cell new ,and will need a thermal cut out as they can explode!!!, but if you know anyone in aircraft maintenance,they can get the cells for free if they go to the battery bay,as they are deemed unfit for aircraft use below 85% capacity and thrown away. you will not find a lighter more powerfull battery--on large turboprop aircraft they put out over 3000 amps and a 20 cell battery is no bigger than a large car battery (you would need only 10 cells)

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Well, what a job that it.. Fitting an Optima battery into the place of one of them crappey little ones with small terminals. NEVER AGAIN...!!!

 

And yet again, a bolt flips off and drops somewhere into the engine bay... Its like a fecking black hole trying to find things which drop around the engine!!

 

Alas, as I suspected. I could not find it *sigh* Just hope it finds its way to the floor nice and tidy :)

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Took the car out for a spin.. No bad noises from the engine bay yet. Lets hope the bolt has gone for a walk on the road...

 

Anyways please find below a pic or two from the new battery install.

 

One question though.. I had to remove a few strands of wire within the plastic to get the two terminals from the battery - & + into the block connectors to connect up to the cars feeds.. Does anyone think this effects anything by removing some of the copper wires?

IMG_0785.jpg

IMG_0787.jpg

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Took the car out for a spin.. No bad noises from the engine bay yet. Lets hope the bolt has gone for a walk on the road...

 

Anyways please find below a pic or two from the new battery install.

 

One question though.. I had to remove a few strands of wire within the plastic to get the two terminals from the battery - & + into the block connectors to connect up to the cars feeds.. Does anyone think this effects anything by removing some of the copper wires?

 

on an aircraft - yeah, on a car - should be no problem

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yeah, effects the current flows, which are rather crucial for the equipment etc. on board.

 

certain types of wire, slightest bit of damage/stands missing will cause the wire to ignite and take out the rest of the loom, bearing in mind, theres over 7k's of wire in a fighter jet - and its all one colour ;)

 

generally, the outer on aicraft cable is paper thin to allow the maximum diameter of conductior, the same sized auomotive cable will have the same outside diameter, but 20-40% less conductor diameter. its also damn expensive - £1187 per meter... ask Ian C - he took a photo of a real of it which i had borrowed from work ;)

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