Battery Preferences
 

Any brand preference or size when it comes to replacing a Miata battery? Going with something lighter would be a nice way to save a few pounds. What's worked for you and for how long?

Penn Deka makes a miata replacement AGM. Also, Braille AGM batteries are just rebadged Dekas. I've been running one for about two years after the oem took a dump.

Rebadged Braille is a good street option.

I am going to go with an A123 8-cell unit in the black car, but it doesn't make a good street battery.

I didn't note the brand, but bundy just showed me his new battery the other night. Seems to weigh like 2lbs and is the size a couple packs of cigarettes put together.

Sounds like an A123 setup. Should weigh ~1.5lbs. Great for race cars, not so much for street cars (you get 2 chances to start the car, then you break the jumper cables out).

I have a Braille 11.5 pound battery in mine. Never fails to start the car after it's been sitting for a week or so in 20f or lower. If you lived in a warmer climate you might be able to get away with less power, but for me it's perfect.

The cheapest one I can buy, which is really heavy. That corner is light.

Attachment 191638

7.7 lbs Yuasa YTX14AHL: 210 CCA, 12 Ah, 7.7 lbs; 5 5/16" x 3 1/2" x 6 9/16"

I use a Battery Tender Jr. whenever the car will sit for more than a few days at a time. I've had it since summer of last year with no issues. I also tend not to drive it when it's really cold out (e.g. 30s in the morning) so I can't speak to its starting ability in those conditions.

I had a stock one...it didn't have enough power for the hell I put the starter through when trying to start it/my tune.

Bought an optima red top and modified the bracket to hold it. Car has hardtop, softtop, all power options, AC...don't care about weight...yet.

I have the Deka ETX12 which weighs about 6lbs. Seems fine, but doesn't like being started over and over in a short time. It's a little more fogiving than Andrews battery, but not much. The Deka is also only $60.

DEKA ETX14. M3 track pukes use it, so it must be good enough for the street in a miata. 12 A-h, 200 cranking amps, 12 lbs.

http://jkuper.smugmug.com/Cars/S50-B...86_ouo9g-M.jpg

http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl...q=deka%20etx14

Very true. With this logic, is there really any reason to go with a light battery in anything that's not a designated race car?

Oddessey 680t.

winter daily driver means I got an optima yellow top.

red top optima in my car

Well I know I hate my WestCo. Only 2-3 years old, and it struggles to start the car in cold weather (20-30 degrees) after only sitting 24 hours. God forbid I leave the radio on for 20 minutes with the engine off, the damn thing drains way too fast. Wish I had spent a bit more for the Optima yellow top.

How well does it fit down there? Does it actually fit in the plastic tray?

i had 3 optimas die on me in the past... all were less than 6 months old and after changing to a different brand i had no issues.

no more optima for me.

It was a Yusa YTZ7S

4 7/16 x 2 3/4 x 4 1/8
Weight 4.6 lbs
130 CCA.

6 AH

I have used an Optima yellow top D51R for years and it has been the best battery ever in terms of reliability. Even running the thing down several times it has come right back to life. It weighs 27 lbs however.

Westco’s are complete garbage in my opinion.
Red top Optima’s haven’t worked so well either.

We will se How I can live with the Yusa I might go to the 10 or 14 if it really doesn’t cut it only a few lbs more. My car is ~200# over weight though and I’m looking to cut weight wherever I can. I need to loose som weight off my fat gut as well though.

Bob

Optima Yellow top D51R fits perfectly. just a little taller than stock is all. I don't think there is a more reliable miata battery. It will handle deep cycles, even started my car after leving the parking lights on for 8 hours at work once. It is not a light weight option though.

Bob

Had to look that up

1.44 lbs!!

I wonder if you could make a starter out of a Lithium battery cordless electric impact gun and have it double as your battery as well.

Bob

The D51R is too tall for the NB.

I got the D35 which is lower, wider, and 620 CCA compared to the D51R's 450 CCA. All at a svelte 35 lbs!

The D35 also has the reversed posts of the D51R.

It does fit into the battery area but I forget if I had to modify the tray slightly. I think it's a little wider than the top bracket can handle so I removed one of the "ears" but it's solidy mounted.

the optima yellow is HEAVY but it will crank your car until your arm is too sore to keep the key twisted any longer.

I've got a small deep cycle that will crank the car a surprisngly long amount of time - it starts the miata just fine but would not start the 2.6L straight six in my other car.
it's made by XS Power, I got it from a performance shop. It doesn't have any CCA rating but it seems to work fine on 4cyl cars.

I've had a couple of the red tops in my GTX's and they went tits up. The lower rated smaller and lighter deep cycle D51R has been pretty much indestructable its now in my GTX as well.

Bob

Been running the Optima Red batteries in my miatas for years now. Heavy as piss; but damn they spin forever. Going on 5 years with the first battery and just bought another today for my yellow car. Was a group 34 battery which fit perfect after I bent the first tabs on the hold-down and yanked the battery tray.

I've tried the red tops and the duralast gold with magic warranty (buy one, get a new one every 12 months when it dies)

And the yellow top. I can let the car sit for a couple weeks in ice cold weather and come back and start it right up in 30F weather.

I could probably also drive it around in 3rd gear if I was so inclined.

I can beat that. I drove the GTX on the starter motor for 1/4 mile after I broke a 1.6 crank once.

Bob

Try that on your dinky new battery lol.

I just put a new battery in the street car a few months ago. It's got lots of electrical add-ons and I wanted a strong battery for it.

I bought an Odyssey PC925L and a pair of automotive terminals for it.

The PC925L is nearly the same size as the OEM battery if you put it on its side. I used the OEM battery hold-down hardware with any modification. With the automotive terminals the original battery wires work perfectly.

Best price I found at the time was at AutoPartsDealer.com.

Specs on the battery. The "L" has reversed terminals.
http://www.odysseybatteries.com/battery/pc925series.htm

Yea I figure with the new battery I'll get a couple of shots to get it started and that is about it.

Bob

One thing I learned about batteries and racing, is that I will have a heavy duty and 'heavy' battery for any tuning, or pit duties, and then I would use a battery that was used specificaly for getting the job done on the track.

Drag racing is particularly hard on batteries. Electric water pumps, hot iginitions, gigantic fuel pumps and often times no alternator, will eat batteries like an 8 year old with a bag of M&Ms.

I guess Prospero and I have the only two good red tops out there. I've drained mine with the radio over a couple months while rebuilding the engine (took two months to drain it). I jump it enough to start the engine, disconnect the cables and I'm off, no special treatment. I've jumped plenty of cars, both with the engine on and off. I've struggled with starting it due to tunes and it never fails to live past the point where I fix the tune.

Bought a Westco-branded Deka in '05 for the red car. It lasted about 3 years before it wasn't able to start the car reliably in cold (40°F) weather.

Replaced it with a red-top model 35 Optima in mid '08. Doesn't fit in the plastic tray, needed some trimming of the base with a hacksaw, but I think it fits pretty well all things considered:

http://img37.imagefra.me/i51h/thradd..._ede_u77ts.jpg

At first, it was awesome. Seems like it started to degrade after about a year and a half. Recently, I tried starting the red car after it had sat idle for about three months, and there wasn't even enough voltage to turn on the ECU, much less run the starter.


Meanwhile, the piece-o-shit generic flooded battery in the blue car, which is several years old, still starts it like a champ.

I wish I could find that video of why you always go 2 feet in and why you need a battery that wil crank 10-15 times, guy had the NASA Champioship race stole from him due to a battery...paging spoolin2bars

I installed a 4.5 pound battery from a quad. been happy with it. just gotta be cxarefull is all. :-)

Odyssey PC680 here.

i use a Honda group size 51r. only thing you have to modify is the metal tie down and i did that with a vice to get that bend out of it.

I have an Everstart battery made by Delphi that I managed to pick up at Wal-mart for $60. It can pump about 870 cranking amps at freezing. It can also pump 25amps with 10.5v at the post for 110 minutes. It weighs about 200lbs.

I had one of those in the back of my CRX, worked well.

I know I'm going to get some flak for asking this, but has anyone relocated a Miata battery (other than the MiataBusa)? Seems like you'd want that big lump of lead as low and centered as reasonable. Under the passenger seat maybe? Methinks you could pull it off with a PC680 laid on its side.

Of course this would be pointless in a track car, being that you're using batteries < 5 lbs anyway.

Mine is in the cabin on the passenger side of the trans tunnel in my track car.

yes theoretically, but some guys run bigger batteries back there to get better weight distribution.

can't find the video, but one of our pca/nasa buddies went to nasa nationals and lost the championship because his little battery wouldn't crank his engine over. he actually went to feet in, he's not a newb, but he had a brand new twin disc clutch and ultralight flywheel, and with the adrenaline and new clutch he stalled his 993 and was out the race.....and the championship!

I've got a D51R in my 99, but then I pulled all the trunk liner stuff out ages ago.

It's great, way better than the useless WestCo I suffered with for several years. The early Hydra in my car doesn't start it properly if the battery is at all low (gets confused and fires the spark at the wrong time, stopping the engine or something like that). The Optima fixed all that.

--Ian

This.

Exide Orbital only for me now.

Cool. Do you have any pics to upload?

Something about that just seems like a band-aid fix to me. This is a terrible comparison, but you won't see any formula cars hanging ballast over and behind their rear wheels.

My battery preferences?

Female and with lots of cranking amps...

I prefer to forgo the battery all together and just find people to help push start me. Saves me money on buying a battery.

lol

I'm trying to order a battery now and need to make sure I'm ordering the right one. Normally I use the OEM Westco (I think it is) but I'm thinking its time for something a bit beefier.

Looking at a Yellow top Optima D51R on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Optima-Batteri...owViewpoints=1

I see a couple reviews from miata guys on there and they say the rod needs to be extended but that it fits the tray otherwise. I just measured and it seems it'll be too wide for the Optima.

Can you guys just verify for me that this is indeed the correct yellow top. :bigtu:

A yellow top D51R will fit my 93 or my 94. I don't use a plastic tray. Just use the existing factory metal brackets that hold the factory battery base in place to hold the base on the Optima.

I did need to buy a longer battery hold down bolt and reused the upper battery hold down without any modification.

So, basically you just need to buy a D51R Optima and a battery hold down bolt to make it work.

John

The Odyssey PC680 is a nice compromise between race and street. I've let mine drain way down several times by forgetting to hook up the trickle charger. So far it's recovered fine.

Ok cool, thanks guys.

I'm gonna go ahead and order the Optima yellow top and 2 K&N cone filters from Amazon. The filters are on sale for $15 each and the battery is listed for more than $50 less than FM has it listed for. :bigtu:

I making this a Jesus thread... Will a D75/25 yellow top be an overkill? I am tired of having electrical issues :wavey:

kind of, you probably have some other issue. i'm running a lawn tractor battery, plus only drive my car a few times per month.

Get the D35. It'll outlive your electrical problem.

I've drained mine twice due to complications with power flowing backwards through a boost solenoid into the megasquirt and then charged it up and let it sit for almost a month.

Car started right up.

The D51R is lighter and the yellow top Deep cycle starting battery is way more resistant to abuse than the larger red tops in my experiance.

Bob

I've had better luck with Duralast in my turbo car than Optima, and that car sits for weeks at a time, and gets lots of cranking.

I'm talking yellow top... that is the right size for an NB trunk with stock mounting hardware (minor mod required) and correct post orientation.

fits like glove!

D35 => 36.4 Lbs

D51R => 26.0 LBS

They are both heavy as I think the stock battery is ~24 lbs. Severe abuse of the D51R has not killed it for me. the D51R fits in the stock loacation for an NA, might be too tall in an NB to be just like stock.

After trying a few super light batteries in the 5 and 6 lb range I now have a Bikemaster True Gel I think YTZ14S
It’s 7.8 lbs. It most of the time gets the car started but with very little margin. The car can sit for a week and it starts right up but turn it off for a short time and sometimes it won’t. I have found the Hydra ECU is extremely picky about not having enough voltage while cranking. The car will crank just fine but the ECU wont give it spark or fuel unless it sees ~11 volts. This is a problem for small batteries while cranking.
Bob

Run a jump pack while your in the pits?

The D51R fits in an NB, but you need a slightly longer bolt for the hold-down. I keep meaning to cut a length of pipe to use as a spacer, but that's not really necessary.

And yeah, my Hydra is also very picky about starting voltage.

--Ian

you keep your ten pounds, i'll keep my 37% more cold cranking amps.

also the 35 costs a bit more. but whatever, i love it.