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Tools
Parts
Instructions
Why put the battery in the trunk?
Installation
If you look in the engine right on the fire wall almost all the way to the passenger side fender right next to the wiper motor you will see a black grommet. Rip that out. Bang, now you have a hole for your wire to enter through. Run that wire from the sill all the way under the various interior pieces until you have it up behind the glove box. You may want to remove the glove box for better access, there are 2 screws on the bottom of it, then lift it out. Now that you have access peel back the black padding that covers the floor, behind it you should see light coming in through the hole you made by removing that grommet... Wire exiting the cockpit through the grommet hole...
Now you have your wire ran. Next step I did was mount the battery box in the trunk. What I did was turned the box on it's top, I took a buisness card and lined it up with the edge of a corner of the box. I drilled a large hole in that corner, then I used the card as a guide and drilled holes in each corner so that way they were all equally far apart and uniform. Then I placed the box in my trunk. I decided the best spot was right next to where the spare tire used to be down in the well. Some people mount it on top of the fender but I thought that is not as good because 1. Your ability to mount the box level and well for that matter is going to be much harder and 2. Because putting the weight lower in the car will lower it's center of gravity which is much better than a high center of gravity. With the holes in the box I placed the box in the trunk and used a marker to mark where the holes are then drilled holes in my trunk. I then got large stainless steel bolts (because they won't rust) and stuck them up through the top with a big washer one each side to secure it better... Here you can see how I mounted the box with the bolts on the far edges. They are far enough not to touch the battery but close enough to stop it from moving around when it is actually inside the box.
Outside of the box...
Now the box is bolted down and it's very secure if I must say. The next thing I did for the box was placed the fuse breaker on it and drilled holes for it and mounted it to the corner of the box and use appropriate sized screws to hold it on. Now you are good to go for that stuff. Next thing I did was mount up the Distribution Block and cut the wires to make them all fit. What I did was found a spot on the fire wall where it was sort of flat where I could mount the block, it's high up enough so water won't get on it and it will also let you keep the wires shorter so you don't have wires all over the place. I used a drill to line up some pilot holes. Then I mounted the box using self-tapping screws. Self-tapping screws look like they have drill bits on the end of them and they basically tap themselves into whatever you screw them in to. These held the block very secure to the firewall. Go ahead and cut the positive wire to the correct lenghth, strip the end and plug it into the block. Now you theoretically have power to it.
Now with the block mounted you can run the lines. If you already haven't then go ahead and remove all the stock battery pieces. You should have the battery, tie down, tie down j-bolts, tray, metal bracket, positive wire, ground wire, and positive wire all left over. You can junk them as you won't need them anymore. With that stuff out measure yourself out 2 pieces of wire from the block to the starter. The stock positive wire has one small wire going to the starter. We can do much better than that of course. I ran 2 8AWG wires from the block to the starter and attached them with gold twin ring terminals. You can also do the same to upgrade the lead coming from the alternator.
UPDATE: I had a problem with my car not starting the day after doing this swap. I narrowed it down to the positive wire some how grounding on the body metal and it actually fried my starter. What I did was go back and wrap the excessive areas of those ring terminals with electrical tape so they could not touch anything that might be carrying a ground connection. I recommend doing it the right way from the start, and use heatshink tubing on all the lead and ground terminals.
Before I connected them I twisted them together. This will help hold them together and keep them organized. Now that you have probably more than twice the wire to deliver the power to the starter you will notice the car is much easier to start and will do so much faster. Then next wire to run is for the ECU. The positive terminal sends power to the starter and the ECU to keep it powered. I tried to take apart the stock fuse box's terminal and attach it to my wire but that was a lost cause. I decided it would be a better idea to use the superior gold ring terminal. However the fuse box is too small. This is where the Dremel comes into this. I trimmed out all of the extra pieces of the fuse box so there was a nice big opening for the terminal to fit perfectly in. I also had to trim the lid so it would close correctly.
UPDATE: I had a problem with my car not starting. As a precaution of frying something I wrapped the end of the ring terminal that was exposed out of the fuse box with electrical tape so that it could not connect to anything carrying a ground.
The finished product on the front wiring...
After that you are good to go on the front half of the car. Now move to the back again. You might as well place the battery in the box to give you an idea how it should fit. I ran the positive cable around the back of the box and around the side to the fuse breaker. I cut it off where it met the breaker and then attached a ring terminal and bolted it to the AUX part of the breaker. Then I measured out the cut off part and cut it down to size, put a terminal on the end of the BAT side and bolted it down and connected it to the battery and bolted that down. I then took out the dremel once again and sanded down the metal around the old spare tire tie down. I was going to use this for my ground point. I used a M8 bolt about 1'' long with a 1.25 thread pitch which fit in just right. I cut down the ground wire a bit, connected it to the battery, then put a ring terminal on the end and bolted it to the car. The little spark I saw let me know everything was going to work fine. I then reset the fuse breaker and heard my CD Changer come on so I knew everything was good to go. When I first started the car it started strong, probably because the superior connection to the starter. Here is the Fusebox and how the wires were ran...
After that was done I stuck the lid on and used the provided strap to hold it all together. Then I was done. One thing you might want to do if you have the summit box (which is very large) is to add some kind of tie down. I used a 12'' rubber strap and drilled holes in the box to hook it. It does a great job of holding the battery down...
Here is what my engine looked like before and after...
While your at it you can make yourself some new ground wires as those old stock ones are really nasty and falling apart. Mine were all corroded looking so I doubt they carry a very good connection. Here are the new ones I made... Valve cover ground wire...
Body to tranny ground wire...
I made these with some "crimp on" style ring terminals and left over 8AWG wire I had. I just crimped them on the end of the wires which I cut to size, soldered them to the wire, and used heat shrink. These new wires should be weather proof unlike the old ones which were all exposed.
Notes
Another thing that I should address is the Summit Wire Gauge numbers, along with the Lightning Audio Distribution Block Gauge numbers. First of all I should note wire is measure in size called a Gauge. Some products say X Gauge, others say XAWG. I thought they were 2 different measurements. They are not. Gauge is just the longer way of saying AWG which stands for American Wire Guage. All the same thing. Now my Summit Kit came with 2AWG wire. I used a Lightning Audio Distribution Block from sounddomain.com. On the site it says the block is 2AWG into 8AWG. Ok. But when I got the block in the mail it's box said 4AWG into 8AWG. I've heard other people say that the block doesn't work with 2 guage. I thought it wouldn't until I tried. It fit fine. So either Summit Racings wires are really 4AWG and not 2AWG or Lightning Audio's block is really 2AWG when it's package says 4AWG. Either way they both work together perfectly. WARNING: You must use a SEALED BATTERY. Normal batterys produce toxic fumes that could kill you, but since they are in the engine it's no problem. But once it's in your car then there is a problem. So use a Sealed Battery like an Optima and you will have no problems.
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