Not sure if this was the right forum to post this question...mods, please move if need be.

Now that Jinx is off the road for quite some time, I was wondering if anyone has done this. I have done it on one of my old LeBarons, mainly to make room for an intercooler (it was turbocharged), and I know what is involved. I want to do it on this one for several reasons. First is weight balanace, second is to tidy up the engine bay a little bit.

Question is, is it REALLY worth relocating to gain some weight balance?

You may be hurting performance if you relocate it to the trunk. Well, straight line performance at least since there is less weight over the front wheels.

Since the weight of the battery is in the range of one percent of the weight of the car, I doubt anyone could notice a difference - no matter where it is located.

i have read someware that moving a battery from the front to the back is equivalent to moving the motor back 10 inchs

keep it in the front man, its only good for RWD applications

Must have been a small (light) motor. That is pretty extreme. :?
It is a simple calculation - the same as figuring the weight and balance of an aircraft.

Yes this is true and can be proven using simple geometry. Equivalent to moving a 650 llb engine back 10 inches in weight distribution effect.

When I moved the battery in my Firebird from overhanging the front wheels to overhanging the rear wheels, it changed the weight distribution from 53 F / 47 R to 52 F / 48 R. The more neutral handling was immediately noticeable, as was the traction improvement.

True that it works against us +00'* who have their batteries under the rear seat when it comes to traction. Not quite as extreme as moving over back of the rear wheels but it does improve handling. .

Thanks for the input guys. The SSEi will primarily be a track car now (with some Sunday driving every now and then) now that we have the SSE as our daily driver. With that said, it was posted earlier that moving the battery to the trunk, though it will help handling, won't help in front-end traction, which makes sense. I am guessing it is a catch-22

Guess I will have to weigh the pros and cons and go from there.

A track car only needs to be concerned with straight lines. Handling overall doesn't come into the picture as much as traction.

Not all tracks are a straight line. Especially the fun ones

Moving the battery to the rear in our cars as mentioned above, is for handling purposes only. It will help a lot though on our nose heavy cars.

It won't entirely be a track car. Maybe 80% of the time. The other 20% will just be for weekend night cruising, and meet gatherings. With that in mind, I think I am going to commit to moving the battery. Should I need some weight up front, I can always add ballast, or go with stickier tires.

Now then, on to the wiring itself. I plan on running a single 1/0 lead for the positive to a junction block in the engine compartment. There it will split and go to the fuseblock, alternator, and starter. This line will either be fused or CB'd, and I still need to figure out the amperage needed for protection.

The ground I would like to keep short and run to chassis. If this is not recommended, please chime in.

The battery will be relocated to the right rear corner, where the jackbox and the power antenna used to reside. The drainhole for the power antenna will now become the venthole for the battery box. The hole where the antenna mounted through will be filled and painted when the major bodywork starts. Of course, all the stereo equipment I installed will now find a home in the SSE.

If anyone sees any flaws in this configuration, please flag them and offer up suggestions. I'm not gonna do this half-arsed or half-hearted, so no idea will be shuned