graveshb
Go Kart Champion
Preemptively I want to say that I have not completed this, and do not have long term proof that a battery this small with ~20 foot of 4 gauge wire will have the power to start my car in all or even most conditions. I PMd a forum member who runs the same battery in the stock location (albeit in pittsburgh) and he said that he strongly advised against relocating it to the trunk for fear that the battery with only 325 CCA would not be sufficient over the ~20ft of wire. I live in north Florida and I’m willing to try this given our climate. If this set up does not suffice in the colder months, or if I feel that it is not cranking quickly enough, I will look into getting a more powerful battery that still sits flush under the false floor in the hatch, or I will move this battery to the stock location.
Being a five year old at heart, I fixate on ideas I come up with that are typically unpractical, or at least on the silly and not worth it side of implementable. I am very much fascinated with trying to make my car handle as well as it can. Though the fact that I've never had upgraded suspension components on any of my previous cars allows me to be overly impressed with the stock suspension on the mk6 with only an SPM rear sway bar set to the hardest setting. In the quest to make my car handle better on a tight budget, I came across a few threads in the tracking subforum talking about replacing the stock battery with a lightweight one from either braille or deka.
Deka battery thread:
Braille battery thread:
These threads praised the lightweight battery for making the car feel much more nimble, or quick to turn in. While everyone seemed to love the lightweight battery in the stock location, the general consensus on the forums was that it would be difficult and probably not worth the effort to relocate a battery to the trunk. Obviously I couldn't help myself, and decided that if everyone seemed impressed with the results of removing the stock ~36-38lb battery and putting back ~15-17lbs of that weight in the same spot, then the results of removing all of that weight and putting the ~15-17lbs of weight in the trunk would be twice as good.
I looked around on golfmkv.com since I couldn’t find anything on here, and found a few hatch relocations, but nothing that looked clean IMO. This being what I considered to be the cleanest, and yet not clean enough, relocation on the mkv forum Link. I wanted to do my relocation without cutting a whole in the false floor, so that it looked stock unless the false floor was lifted.
I bought the battery here: Deka Battery for $95 shipped since I had to pay sales tax.
I decided in my quest for better balance, that since I was relocating the battery to the trunk, I would place it on the passenger side and as far back as possible. Probably not a great idea in the case of a rear impact but oh well. The battery is completely sealed and is capable of use in motorcycles, atvs, and jet skis, so I have no concerns with running it on its side in my trunk. With it placed on its side and where I have it, the oem false floor is pushed up but only slightly where the battery sits (probably less than a 1/16 of an inch)
DIY: >>>>>> (DO AT YOUR OWN RISK)
The supplies:
Deka battery [URL="www.etx16l.com”]bought here[/URL]
25’ of 4 gauge wire [URL="www.ebay.com/itm/25-ft-4-Gauge-RED-Car-Audio-Power-Ground-Wire-Cable-AWG-25-Feet-Fast-Free-Ship-/390551479343?_trksid=p2054897.l4276”]bought here[/URL] (2 gauge would have been better and if I have any troubles with the 4 gauge I will update this thread and replace it.)
4 crimp on 4 gauge wire ends with 1/4 inch holes to bolt to battery bought locally
heat shrink to cover the crimp on wire ends bought locally
1 8mm by 100 thread nut to ground the negative line off the battery bought locally (I couldn't find a nylon locking nut but I will and will replace the current one.)
1 8mm washer for more contact on the negative ground connection. bought locally
Approximately 1 foot of 3/32ths stainless steel rod, to create battery tie down, or any way you see fit.
2 1/4 20 inch long machine screws I used to attach the battery tie down (I had to drill and tap the holes so...)
Procedure
I decided the best way to attach the wire to the stock positive terminal clamp was to use a standard wire end with a hole in it, and position it in between the gap of the stock terminal clamp. I could've cut the wires and spliced them to get rid of the stock terminal clamp and clean up the look a bit better, but I wanted to be able to easily revert back to stock.
Stock terminal clamp clamped onto 4 gauge wire end. (I currently have this entire set up covered in a ton of electrical tape, but plan on coming up with a better solution, and will update when I do.)
I routed the wire through the firewall. I located a rubber grommet with wires running through it that is directly to the left of the drivers side strut tower. I cut a small incision in the grommet and then used a wooden stick taped to the end of the wire to poke it through the hole.
Wire running through firewall from engine bay:
Wire running through firewall from drivers footwell:
Then I ran the wire underneath the dead pedal, and alongside the door sills. I pulled the plastic piece up then peeled the carpet and sound deadening back in order to hide the wire.
Carpet and sound deadening pulled back to show path of wire:
Wire being pushed in along the door:
Wire routed from door sill up to the rear seat:
Wire routed up to parallel the rear seat backs:
After running the wire behind the rear seat and in between the styrofoam, I followed the passenger side of the hatch and circled around to where the battery sits.
Wire routed along rear seat and back towards the bumper
Wire routed along hatch, and negative wire attached to post. (this post was already there and was a good place to ground the negative wire to.)
Hole I cut out of the bottom of the styrofoam piece. (I made the hole very tight on the battery and as such the battery doesn't move around at all. I am contemplating adding a bracket or strap to hold the battery down better, but for now I'm going to leave it like this.)
Hole I cut out of the bottom as well as the hole I cut to run the wires through
Battery as it sits now
Battery with stainless rod tie down.
This picture better shows how I made the bracket, by bending the stainless rod with vice grips, and then I used stainless 1/4 20 machine bolts to thread into the holes I drilled and tapped into the trunk of my car.
I'm going to take the electrical tape off of the positive terminal in the engine bay, and then pot the terminal in silicone and heatshrink over it, just haven't got around to it yet. I will update this thread with pics of that once I do it, hopefully within the week.
Being a five year old at heart, I fixate on ideas I come up with that are typically unpractical, or at least on the silly and not worth it side of implementable. I am very much fascinated with trying to make my car handle as well as it can. Though the fact that I've never had upgraded suspension components on any of my previous cars allows me to be overly impressed with the stock suspension on the mk6 with only an SPM rear sway bar set to the hardest setting. In the quest to make my car handle better on a tight budget, I came across a few threads in the tracking subforum talking about replacing the stock battery with a lightweight one from either braille or deka.
Deka battery thread:
Braille battery thread:
These threads praised the lightweight battery for making the car feel much more nimble, or quick to turn in. While everyone seemed to love the lightweight battery in the stock location, the general consensus on the forums was that it would be difficult and probably not worth the effort to relocate a battery to the trunk. Obviously I couldn't help myself, and decided that if everyone seemed impressed with the results of removing the stock ~36-38lb battery and putting back ~15-17lbs of that weight in the same spot, then the results of removing all of that weight and putting the ~15-17lbs of weight in the trunk would be twice as good.
I looked around on golfmkv.com since I couldn’t find anything on here, and found a few hatch relocations, but nothing that looked clean IMO. This being what I considered to be the cleanest, and yet not clean enough, relocation on the mkv forum Link. I wanted to do my relocation without cutting a whole in the false floor, so that it looked stock unless the false floor was lifted.
I bought the battery here: Deka Battery for $95 shipped since I had to pay sales tax.
I decided in my quest for better balance, that since I was relocating the battery to the trunk, I would place it on the passenger side and as far back as possible. Probably not a great idea in the case of a rear impact but oh well. The battery is completely sealed and is capable of use in motorcycles, atvs, and jet skis, so I have no concerns with running it on its side in my trunk. With it placed on its side and where I have it, the oem false floor is pushed up but only slightly where the battery sits (probably less than a 1/16 of an inch)
DIY: >>>>>> (DO AT YOUR OWN RISK)
The supplies:
Deka battery [URL="www.etx16l.com”]bought here[/URL]
25’ of 4 gauge wire [URL="www.ebay.com/itm/25-ft-4-Gauge-RED-Car-Audio-Power-Ground-Wire-Cable-AWG-25-Feet-Fast-Free-Ship-/390551479343?_trksid=p2054897.l4276”]bought here[/URL] (2 gauge would have been better and if I have any troubles with the 4 gauge I will update this thread and replace it.)
4 crimp on 4 gauge wire ends with 1/4 inch holes to bolt to battery bought locally
heat shrink to cover the crimp on wire ends bought locally
1 8mm by 100 thread nut to ground the negative line off the battery bought locally (I couldn't find a nylon locking nut but I will and will replace the current one.)
1 8mm washer for more contact on the negative ground connection. bought locally
Approximately 1 foot of 3/32ths stainless steel rod, to create battery tie down, or any way you see fit.
2 1/4 20 inch long machine screws I used to attach the battery tie down (I had to drill and tap the holes so...)
Procedure
I decided the best way to attach the wire to the stock positive terminal clamp was to use a standard wire end with a hole in it, and position it in between the gap of the stock terminal clamp. I could've cut the wires and spliced them to get rid of the stock terminal clamp and clean up the look a bit better, but I wanted to be able to easily revert back to stock.
Stock terminal clamp clamped onto 4 gauge wire end. (I currently have this entire set up covered in a ton of electrical tape, but plan on coming up with a better solution, and will update when I do.)
I routed the wire through the firewall. I located a rubber grommet with wires running through it that is directly to the left of the drivers side strut tower. I cut a small incision in the grommet and then used a wooden stick taped to the end of the wire to poke it through the hole.
Wire running through firewall from engine bay:
Wire running through firewall from drivers footwell:
Then I ran the wire underneath the dead pedal, and alongside the door sills. I pulled the plastic piece up then peeled the carpet and sound deadening back in order to hide the wire.
Carpet and sound deadening pulled back to show path of wire:
Wire being pushed in along the door:
Wire routed from door sill up to the rear seat:
Wire routed up to parallel the rear seat backs:
After running the wire behind the rear seat and in between the styrofoam, I followed the passenger side of the hatch and circled around to where the battery sits.
Wire routed along rear seat and back towards the bumper
Wire routed along hatch, and negative wire attached to post. (this post was already there and was a good place to ground the negative wire to.)
Hole I cut out of the bottom of the styrofoam piece. (I made the hole very tight on the battery and as such the battery doesn't move around at all. I am contemplating adding a bracket or strap to hold the battery down better, but for now I'm going to leave it like this.)
Hole I cut out of the bottom as well as the hole I cut to run the wires through
Battery as it sits now
Battery with stainless rod tie down.
This picture better shows how I made the bracket, by bending the stainless rod with vice grips, and then I used stainless 1/4 20 machine bolts to thread into the holes I drilled and tapped into the trunk of my car.
I'm going to take the electrical tape off of the positive terminal in the engine bay, and then pot the terminal in silicone and heatshrink over it, just haven't got around to it yet. I will update this thread with pics of that once I do it, hopefully within the week.
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