Ok, so I followed http://www.fourthgenhatch.com's instructions on how to relocate the battery to the trunk. I've followed the instructions to a 'T', but now I'm having some serious problems. When I hooked everything up, I connected the positive terminal to the positive battery terminal, then I went to connect the negative terminal and I got MAD sparks and some of the battery terminal melted

I checked, re-checked and RE-CHECKED everything and I'm stumped. My car is sitting at my DIY shop right now, accumilating a nice fat bill, so a quick response would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Any ideas guys???

OH YEA, I forgot to mention, my positive battery cable is 1 gauge welding wire that said '600 volt' on it. I dunno if this could be the case, but I'm looking at all aspects at the moment.

TIA,
-edmCRX

 

Sounds like a crappy battery maybe. They will all spark, but dont dick around with it, stick it to the body and bolt it down.

 

Sounds like you hooked your battery up backwards. That is the only reason a battery will ever spark violently or melt anything.

 

I hade it tested at the store, and it tested fine, full charge and all. I used my tester light on it too, no problems.

 

Dunno how I could have hooked it up backwards.. I ran the positive wire from the battery to my distro block. The spliced out 2 wires to the starter solenoid, and 1 to the fuse box to supply power to the ECU. I connected the negative cable to the spare-tire bolt hole in the back.. I changed all my ground cables just like you had in your pics fourthgenhatch. Maybe I'm missing a ground somewhere or something, this doesn't make ****** sense... :/

 

Answer me this, why do people relocate batterys to the trunk in a FWD car, all it does is take weight off the front wheels = less traction...

Makes NO sense.

 

Also, I dunno, but my starter looks like the one fourthgenhatch has in this pic. The actual bolt the protrudes out of the starter solenoid seemed kinda loose, do you think it could be grounding or have something to do with my problem? I will be heading back soon to try and fix this :/

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LSVTEC 91 Civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Answer me this, why do people relocate batterys to the trunk in a FWD car, all it does is take weight off the front wheels = less traction...

Makes NO sense.</TD></TR></TABLE>It's called, making space for a turbo

 

Ok, maybe I hooked something up wrong. Anyone have a good diagram of how things should be wired??

I can't deciphre some questions that I have from all the pics I have found.

Thanks,
-edmCRX

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LSVTEC 91 Civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Answer me this, why do people relocate batterys to the trunk in a FWD car, all it does is take weight off the front wheels = less traction...

Makes NO sense.</TD></TR></TABLE>

and also is you have a swap you have to relocate the battery to have a CAI,so it'll clear everything

plus,to make room in your bay

 

check the actual terminals on the battery for proper polarity...so that the ground wire is connected to the negative terminal on the batter and power is connected to the positive terminal

its stupid but a possibility

 

First off, it helps add some weigh to the rear of our cars which have a really light back.

I would check to make sure the positive bat. cable isnt shorting out anywhere.. IE: wire cover got stripped or distribution block is touching, etc

 

Ok, well I've come to the conclusion that the starter is <u>fucked</u>. The positive terminal on the starter solenoid is definately grounding from the inside out (the starter even looks like it has seen its day). I figured this out by pulling the positive wire off of the solenoid's positive terminal and hooking up the battery. Of course, no ferocious sparks (YAY). I loosely re-hooked up the positive wire to the solenoid and then hooked up the battery, NO SPARKS. I bolted down the solenoid's positive feed before putting the keys into the ignition, and once again, when I went to hook up the battery I got those nasty, terminal melting sparks. So, you can see why I pinned the problems to the starter.

Will be getting a new starter first thing in the morning, thanks for all the help people.
-edmCRX

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LSVTEC 91 Civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Answer me this, why do people relocate batterys to the trunk in a FWD car, all it does is take weight off the front wheels = less traction...

Makes NO sense.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Try it... makes a very nice difference in handling, makes me almost want to put a lighter D series up front.

Last time I corner weighted my car with the stock (size) battery up front, it was 65% front biased, I'm hoping to get closer to 60% now that I've taken a lot of weight off the front end, but I'm sure a CF hatch and lexan in the rear is going to put the bias right back up to 65% again. Ohh well, rather have less weight overall than more ideal weight distribution.

 

Front heavy cars don't rotate well. Disproportionate weight balance is bad whether the car is FWD or RWD, and if you've ever put your CRX on jack stands you'll know the center of gravity is seriously far forward almost at the edge of the front fenders.


I put mine in the trunk of offset the weight of the b16a and make room for the 99-00 Civic Si CAI

 

Double check your ground, make sure you took some paint off, trying grounding it in a couple different spots and see if you get power. I had some issue with this trying to ground it off the shock tower.

 

try disconnect everything hook up the battery first then hook it up to the starter and see if it happens at the starter

 

No there was no problem with the grounds at all.. I sanded down the contact area so well I almost went right through the metal

Everything is fine.. all my connection points are A+, just the starter is causing a real bad short

 

you may want to recheck your connections.+/- swapped? friend of mine wasnt thinkin n same thing happened to him. hahaa


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LSVTEC 91 Civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Answer me this, why do people relocate batterys to the trunk in a FWD car, all it does is take weight off the front wheels = less traction...

Makes NO sense.</TD></TR></TABLE>

theres also something called, "CLEAN". makes for room in the engine compartment and loooks better IMO.

 

nah.. was the first thing I was thinking.. because like fourthgenhatch said 'the battery only throws sparks like that when the positive and negative wires are backwards'.

Everything is perfectly fine, I ran through the wiring like 100000 times.. checked every cable inch by inch.. looked for frayed positive wires contacting the body, scald marks, the works.

It's definately the starter

Thanks for the idea though

 

Moving the battery does the following things for your FWD...

1. frees up a lot of space in the engine bay.
2. helps more evenly distribute weight.

the 30lbs or more you lose from the front isn't going to affect traction, the front end of the car still has 1200+lbs over the front axle, you think an extra 30lbs means ****? Get some better tires.

I know for a fact my car has 60/40 weight distribution because I tested it on a suspension/alignment machine at work and I can only think that things like moving the battery helped me achieve that.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by edmCRX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">No there was no problem with the grounds at all.. I sanded down the contact area so well I almost went right through the metal

Everything is fine.. all my connection points are A+, just the starter is causing a real bad short </TD></TR></TABLE>

This is very possible. I used to rebuild starters and this is a common problem. The starter is probably still in working condition but the solenoid is fugged. I would stay away from autozone, pep boys, o'reilly, type starters. Find a reputable rebuilder. Better quality at a cheap price.

 

i know that when my starter went bad, when i would attempt to crank the car it would blow the inline fuse goin to my relocated battery.. not cool

 

Well today I went and bought a new starter. Lucky for me that was the main problem. The day was a lot longer than it should have been due too some stupid fucknuts who tried to uninstall the starter last (probably those dumb ricers that owned the car before me and decided to be 'pro mechanis' rofl). The bolt that sits at the top-most part of the starter assembly was pretty much stripped, not to mention deadlocked like a mother *****. Took me damn near an hour of using a breaker bar, WD-40, and lots of pressure to get the thing out (just happy that it came out )..

But yea, all in all everything that was replaced/done in my entire adventure was going to have to be done sooner or later.

The car starts really well now, the new battery is amazing.. just gotta wire up my circuit breaker, bolt down my battery box, and build some kind of a sub/battery/amp rack in the back and I'm golden.

Thanks for the help,
-edmCRX

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by edmCRX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Well today I went and bought a new starter. Lucky for me that was the main problem. The day was a lot longer than it should have been due too some stupid fucknuts who tried to uninstall the starter last (probably those dumb ricers that owned the car before me and decided to be 'pro mechanis' rofl). The bolt that sits at the top-most part of the starter assembly was pretty much stripped, not to mention deadlocked like a mother *****. Took me damn near an hour of using a breaker bar, WD-40, and lots of pressure to get the thing out (just happy that it came out )..

But yea, all in all everything that was replaced/done in my entire adventure was going to have to be done sooner or later.

The car starts really well now, the new battery is amazing.. just gotta wire up my circuit breaker, bolt down my battery box, and build some kind of a sub/battery/amp rack in the back and I'm golden.

Thanks for the help,
-edmCRX</TD></TR></TABLE>

^good to hear.