In Car Battery

[Sandy]

Question for the Safety folks. I'm going to end up stuffing a Odyssey PC1200 in the passenger footwell of my RCR. I have looked at a couple of battery boxes, and it ends up be basically the open billet type and sealed (well I'll call it semi sealed). Given that the box is not that thick and terminals can be well insulated in all cases, and car is pretty open for flow of air, any reason to use one over the others. I'm swaying towards the taylor, with some small rework...

Battery size for the PC1200 is about 8"Lx7"Wx8"H

Here are a couple of links to boxes

300 Series (0.040" aluminum)
http://www.taylorvertex.com/Products/pdfs/taylorcatalog34.pdf

Summit Style Open
Odyssey Battery HDB1200 - Odyssey Billet Battery Mounts - summitracing.com

Summit Closed Style - Way too large and would require a bunch or work to reduce, I have one in another car and thing aluminum well made. Which sounds odd for the house brand, but it is good.

Summit SUM-890100 - Summit Fabricated Battery Boxes - summitracing.com

Sandy

 

[Randy V]

Why in the passenger compartment?:shrug:

 

[Sandy]

Why not

Well, maybe a couple of reasons, one is the normal mounting in the rear of the car has a dry sump tank, the other side is going to be used for pumps and other stuff. So it would be in the front section behind the radiator or in the foot well of the passenger. Plenty of room. The one place I don't really want to put it is in the front behind the radiator. No need to clutter that area up and I'm sure the direct blow of radiator heat will not be the best for the battery.

Any SCCA regulations about in car battery and containers?


Sandy

 

[Randy V]

SCCA Scrutineers vary from region to region - however - I think if you have the battery totally enclosed in a metal case - they couldn't give you too much crap. Their biggest concern is that it is firmly mounted and fully contained. Sometimes they get a little owly about ventilation..

That said - you will have a lot more issues than battery mounting in order to get a GT40 log-booked as a competition vehicle in Club Racing..

Me - I don't want the battery in the compartment with me.. I'd find a place behind the half-shafts to build a bracket for it.. It's not that darned big anyway..

 

[Dean Lampe]

I run mine in the foot box. I really don't have room anywhere else. It it securely mounted and it is a dry cell battery. I really don't see a problem with it. If I am in a crash that is so severe that my battery is busted open from the impact, I am afraid I would have much larger problems.

 

[Mike]

I believe the Odyssey is an AGM type battery. If it is, these are certified for use in passanger areas of aircraft. They are one of the safest batteries you can have. There is virtually NO outgassing, and as such NO ventilation is required.

Just as a thought. If there is plenty of room in the footwell, why not do something like bulkhead off an area and have it accessible from the front of the car instead of the passanger compartment? SCCA scrutineers are not known for their flexibilty and that would avoid the issue.

 

[Sandy]

Yes, the Odyssey is an AGM type batter, and should be fine. I did find some SCCA stuff on the web, and it seems for some classes of cars not ok for passenger compartment, but for more preped cars, just fine. I don't think it is a safety thing, just class based.

Bulkhead, too much work! But I think I'm just going to use the Taylor Vertex closed box and make it a bit stronger and Insulate the inside a bit since the case will be grounded just for piece of mind. Once nice thing is in the RCR you can open the top panel (were th spare tire would go) and get right to the battery. I'll have a usual Anderson Power Connector stuffed on the outside of the car for the usual Jump start ;-)

Next is the master switch. I'll start another post on that with my thinking...which btw might not be right!

Sandy

[edit] Forgot to mention that I'm not really trying to get SCCA check off, just want to not do something really out of whack with battery placement (safety wise).