I am replacing my 11 year old dying battery with a small Deka.

What do you guys do for a hold down clamp?

 

I thought that the Deka battery fit with the OEM retaining clamp, no? I'm pretty sure that's all I used when I had one.

Here's how my Optima is held in:



One J-hook from autozone, one piece of straight threaded rod, a bit of aluminum L-channel, and a few nuts. I built a similar thing to hold in the Duralast (wet cell) that came in the blue car.

 

I just cut/weld/modified the stocker to fit my non Mazda battery. Works like a charm and looks oem.

 

I am running a Deka, and it fit in there with no issues at all. I am pretty surprised that a Deka battery is known to this site. Where did you buy it at?

 

There's some history behind it.

East Penn / Deka, as you probably know, is a big OEMer. Well, one of the very first commonly available aftermarket, direct-fit, AGM batteries with correct terminal polarity for the Miata was sold by a company called Westco, who specifically sell it as "the Miata battery": http://www.westcobattery.com/content...php?page=miata

I don't know if it's still the case, but initially, that battery was a Deka unit, private labeled. Since then, a number of other companies have gotten into the Deka-relabel business as well. For quite a while, the Duralast "Miata" battery was a Deka (it's now a wet-cell), and the Marathon battery still is: http://www.batterymart.com/p-12v-maz...a-battery.html Batteries Plus also sells a Deka-relabel, though I can't recall whose name is on it.

 

Anything quicker and off-the-shelf, or using cheap random parts from FLAPS?

 

Past few Autozone(Duralast) batteries I've bought were the Deka battery, sad to hear they went to a wet cell.

8AM-U1R was the autozone number, same as the end of Marathon's number.(Must be Deka's) I noted somewhere that the mold marks on the Westco case are the same as the Duralast

 

Yeah, 8AM-U1R is the Deka p/n for the original part, so anything you find with that number should be a Deka AGM, regardless of whose label is on it. I've seen them with both black and grey on the lower body, but the cap section seems to always be identical- that ridged black design.

That's the reason why I suspect Westco may have found a new OEM- the picture on their website looks different now. Here's the current Westco image:




And the Deka:




Or maybe it's just that Deka changed the design and only Westco has an updated picture...



edit: Found a newer picture of the Marathon, looks the same as the new Westco:



Must be that Deka just redesigned the top.





EDIT II: And I still maintain that the OEM battery clamp should work on it.

 

 

The westco works just fine with the OEM holder in the NB and in my NA Miata.

 

We have a Westco in the Rental on the stock hold-down.