Battery Cable Routing from Trunk Mounted Battery

[Vicfreg 771]

Looking for suggestions/pictures of large (1/0 or 2/0) cable routing from trunk mounted battery to the starter, and the engine compartment.  I will be routing 2 separate cables from back to front.  Plan to use door channel, but not sure how to get through the firewall from the door channel location.  I will have a normally "dead" starter wire, that is just energized when I am starting the car.  My solenoid is trunk mounted.  You can see some of this in my project forum site (1970 mustang convertible)

Thanks!

[latoracing 256]

I don't have a direct shot of the area you are referring to, but if you can get the wire through the lower A pillar and out before your fresh air vent, keep it tucked in close to the A pillar. Go up to the top of the toe board (bottom of the HVAC box) and go towards the tunnel, bore a hole to the engine bay, secure with a bunch of cushion clamps and bulk head grommets . Otherwise you'll end up going through your lower cowl and ending up on the outside portion of the aprons, or trying to go through a torque box. Should have put you a channel in there lol.

Hope that made some kind of since.

 

[RPM 1,190]

If I understood Mike,  I believe I ran my cable like he said.  

The cable starts at the front of the battery and goes up and over the wheel house. 

It drops down the front of the wheel house and into the trough of the upper rocker panel. 

It continues forward into the A pillar below the vent and up the angled toe board. I believe 2 battery cables will fit in the recess as long as other wires aren't there in the way. 

There is room to pull the cable thru the fresh air area and in and behind the heater. Hopefully you'll have not installed the heater box like me. Then it exits the passenger compartment behind the heater box. 

And into the engine bay. 

Since you're installing the solenoid in the trunk, I'm not sure where the cable terminates in the engine compartment. Anyway,   that's how i did mine and it was pretty easy. 

 

[bigmal 225]

Just curious what are the benifits of the battery in the boot? Is it weight distribution or other reasons?

[JD08 42]

It moves a chunk of weight from the front of the car to the rear, making for better launches at the drag strip and better weight distribution on a road course.  It also makes for a cleaner looking engine compartment.

[Mach1 Driver 560]

2 hours ago, JD08 said:

It moves a chunk of weight from the front of the car to the rear, making for better launches at the drag strip and better weight distribution on a road course.  It also makes for a cleaner looking engine compartment.

and allows more room for other things, like added relays, or maybe a FiTech command center, etc

[unilec 57]

RPM, your battery cable routing looks good, i would just suggest that under the fender area, you wrap some split conduit around the cable, a lot of crap gets thrown up from the front tires, a bit more mechanical protection wont do any harm.

http://www.altronics.com.au/p/h3805a-22mm-cable-split-loom-tubing-10m/

[RPM 1,190]

6 hours ago, unilec said:

RPM, your battery cable routing looks good, i would just suggest that under the fender area, you wrap some split conduit around the cable, 

It is wrapped,  I also installed the fender :)  I guess I can now remove the shock ride height note. 

[Raven R code 281]

Just make sure the trunk battery has a cover. The internal gutter system that took water that weeped in at the lower corner of the backlite had a bad stamp and instead of routing water through the car to the trunk drop off(drain plug), it funneled the water over my battery and splattered battery acid all over. Let's just say battery acid and sheet metal are not good friends.

[Cruzzar 22]

Any chance that you are going to put subframe connectors on your car. Before I installed mine I routed my battery cable down thru the bottom of the trunk area right into the middle of the subframe connector and thru the middle of the connector up into the front sub frame and than it exited close to where the starter  terminal was located. This took a little planning and I did weld in  3/4" emt to form a continuous tube from trunk to where it exited the front sub frame close to the starter. Probably a lot more work that routing the cable internally but it really is a clean, simple path for your cables.

[1969_Mach1 333]

RPM, if you have enough slack in your cable, drop it down a little lower than where it passes through the grommets in the fender well.  It's a clean install but any water that gets on the cable will tend to run down the cable through the grommets.  The grommets should stop it.  It's just another precaution, especially where is passes through into the car.

[Vicfreg 771]

Wow, thanks for all the replies.    RPM, thanks for all of the detailed pictures!    I can easily get the cable from the trunk over the rear wheel well and into the passenger side channel.  When I get to where the air vent area is, I want to head out into the front fenderwell.  So, I think RPM's routing is what I need to follow.  I will give this a try and provide an update......

[Vicfreg 771]

Down the road a bit on this since last post.  More details on my project site (1970 convertible)