Retired at 48? Damn, now I am really impressed. Good for you.

I'm lost, tell me I am not understanding you: the spare battery you leave in the car all the time is in the full booster case??? Those things are heavy!!! Haven't you just washed out any weight savings?

I want to try your method here but I am worried that it won't stand up to 2-6 daily starts, 5-7 days a week. It sounds like you don't start your car as often as some of us. Do you think it is safe for us to try your method or given the many starts each day, almost everyday, should we stick with some of the batteries The Wizard mentioned?

Mechanical engineer, huh? Nice. That explains things. I am Civil. I can't tell you how to make your car go faster down the road but I can tell you the structural section of the road under you, does that count? :I

 

I think it should be fine if you start it many times a day. Its when it sits for a few days un-used that the battery gets low, which would make it hard to start or not start at all.

 

I said the spare is in the casing not the one I am using. If the one in the car craps out I just clamp on the spare.

But like venompwr2 said its ok if you use it lots its when it sits around that it loses power. Do you have any idea how many times I start it one race days. I don't even want to count, especially in the lanes.

I was just thinking about yesterday racing against all the v8 guys. There are dozens of 8-11 sec cars there in the lanes. None of them open their hoods or push their cars through the lanes. Yet every civic at the import races open their hoods, push their cars, ice their intakes etc etc. Most of these guys do have electric water pumps that cool their cars in the pits but still????

Regardless you won't lose a whole lot if it doesn't work but I think you will be ok. I wouldn't leave it in for cold weather as it is only 300 cca.

 

I understand that completely. But you said you carry the spare around with you just in case. If you throw the spare (the fully encased booster battery) in your trunk, you washed out any weight savings you did with the 6 lb battery under the hood. ?

 

Following my question about the cold cranking amps, my current battery has around 600CCA's. Is 220CCA enough to not cause any startup problems?

 

Not necesarily. I just went out and bought one a few minutes ago from autozone, its a Mity mite, this one is 10lbs with the case. It was $50, pepboys had a few different ones with air comp. and extras but they were also $130+ so you mind as well just guy a lightweight racing batter at that price. I havent weighed the battery yet, but I'm guessing its about 6-8lbs. But if you have the bigger ones then they are a bit heavy. I'm sure he doesnt race with the spare one in teh car though, so in Jime's case it doesnt matter if he keeps a spare there or not because he's into track racing.
Here are pics of the one I just got. I'll put up a pick of the battery when I finish charging it and remove it from the pack. Luckily, I remembered my grandpa has one of these small 12v batteries we used to use on the boat for the aerator in the live well sooo I'm going to use that for an extra one.

very small case on this one. It doesnt have the CCA rating which worries me, but this will only be used in the spring/summer time so I"m not too worried anyways.

 

I only carry it around on the street not at the track. Never had a problem or needed to use it at the track or on the street for that matter. The only time I have had to use the spare is at home when it sits for long periods ie 2 or 3 days without driving it.

 

where's the best/cheapest place to purchase the Hawker Odyssey PC680MJT w metal jacket?

 

As far as the best/cheapest, I don't know. I'm still looking myself. I can, however, provide some links to websites that carry these lightweight batteries. As far as customer service, I bought an Optima Blue top battery from Battery Web a few years back for my Supra, and the guy was knowledgable, friendly, and I got the battery in two or three days. If you buy one, let me know where you bought yours from. Thanks.


http://www.portablepower.com/items/b...P/all/37L141S3

http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?c=odyssey

http://www.batteryweb.com/odyssey.cfm

http://www.odysseybatteries.com/auto.htm

 

For those with light weight batteries, how long have you had them?

I had mine for about 1 year. Recently, I suspect that it may have caused a small fire under my hood. Now, I am running a regular battery now..

 

good thread.

 

Jime, how come you don't just take out the battery every time you're going to let it sit for a couple days? Sure, all your settings will be reset and all, but that happens everytime it sits anyway. And a car without a battery I think makes a better security system doesn't it? They can't move it, and generally car alarms are ignored anyway. Meh. Just wondering.

 

Bejay1 and 96Sleeper,

Did you guys get the optional metal jacket on your Hawker batteries?

How long have you had your batteries?

I just noticed on this site, http://www.portablepower.com/items/b...P/all/37L141S3 that the Hawker Genesis battery is not recommended for "motorsports" use. They recommend using the Odyssey instead. I really want the Genesis and save that 4 lbs.

AHHHHH, decisions, decisions.

 

did you have to drill holes to hold the battery tray in the side like that?


also, is that red plastic thing that goes over the + terminal important? mine fell off somehow and is not to be found...

 

do these light weight batterys put out enough for a system

 

With the car off, forget it. With the car on, maybe, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you have a full system, then you probably don't care about weight savings??? I recommend you get an optima battery for your stereo needs.

 

No metal jacket for me, just the battery and terminals. I have had it for over a year and a half I believe, not one problem yet.

 

We welded it in place. Just get some type of cap or replacement cover to prevent anything from touching the + terminal.

 

I never caught that until now otherwise I would've gone the Odyssey route. The vibration thing is the whole reason I got the Optima in the first place. I just went the Genesis route as that's what the 200SX and Sentra crowd were doing their group buys on. Here's how they're different.
http://www.odysseyfactory.com/docume...%20ODYSSEY.pdf

I've had mine about a year or more and I love it. It did make it through a Chicago winter which suprised me. Turns out I couldn't fit the Optima down there as planned

 

do any of you guys with lightweight batteries have a disconnect switch?

 

I was wondering if you guys have huge audio systems running with those small batteries. I would imagine that the battery definitely wouldn't last very long if you had a big audio system hooked up to it. Any of you guys want to chime in on this?

 

stock bose for me. seems that the few that get this battery are concerned mainly with weight so i doubt if anyone reallys runs a big system with this type of battery. i have the odyssey and an udp so that would not a smart idea even if i wanted a system.

 

I just bought the two different emergency jumpstart battery options they sell at Wal-Mart. One was 300 amps for $37, the other was 600 amps for $77. I wasn't sure which I wanted so I bought both. I'll return the one I don't keep. Obviously I would prefer the $37 battery (weight and price). I'll start experimenting with him first. He is only 9lb in the entire encasement! He'll probably weigh 6 lb or less once removed from the case. I'll get some terminals on it, install it and use it on a daily basis and report back to you guys.

 

I swapped over to the 400 amp, 12lb battery 3 weeks ago. As I stated earlier the 300 amp, 6lb one kept going dead in the middle of the week because I didn't drive the car.

This one has kept up with no problem and for another 6 lbs I think I will leave it in. I will just go on a diet for the other 6.

 

with ease ! my odyessy had no juice for 8 months on a ship. charged it up once the car arrived and it cranks the car with ease. its been through a cold winter with no problems. i have also left the car lights on over night. battery was drained. pushed the car down the road and drove around an hour or so and the little pc680 was charged and powered up.

these things are great !

 

O.k., well it has been 2+ months since my post #63 so I figured I should report back. I have been using the 6.4 lb, 300 Amp, $37 battery from Wal-Mart for the past 2 months (thanks for the tip Jime). I bought some "L" brackets and nuts from Home-Depot and installed some '+' and '-' terminals I bought from Wal-Mart. Since I was just doing a trial run, please excuse the fishing wire I have temporarilly used to tie the battery down. Oh, and the red and green pads are because I was getting that white powder terminal build-up.

Overall, I have no problems with the battery. I use the car almost every day but there may be a period of several days without use. The battery has not failed to start the car except for once when I played a DVD for maybe 2-3 minutes with the engine off. So as long as I do not use any accessories without the car running, it seems to function fine.

I'm still undecided about keeping this as my everyday battery but so far it seems to be working.

 

I wanted to add a nice link to batterys i just came across..... im looking to get something for my ser. http://www.stealth316.com/2-dynabatt.htm

 

Nice link. Ha ha. "The Dyna-batt is certainly a rebadged Genesis" Ha ha. Glad I didn't overypay and get that one since it's identical to my Odyssey PC680MJT.

I never did a follow up report to this thread. After months and months of use, I happy with my PC680MJT. See sig for location.