Looking for deep cycle battery for 02 SC2

[jtish]

Hello well i am having an issue finding a deep cycle battery that fits into my 02 sc2 without having to do any major modifications. Was wondering if anybody has had any luck with the yellow top optima batteries and if they are even worth my time. I have a kicker zx1000.1 powering a 10" kicker solo baric L7 and a kicker zx 350.4. I need more power and my battery just wont cut it. If anyone knows anything please let me know!!

[PlasticCarsRock]

I've heard lots of really good and bad things about the optima yellow-tops.

As far as more power--is this with the car running or off--nothing is going to run a powerful system for very long with the car off. If you're having trouble with the car on, you might want to look into a battery designed for car audio (perhaps mount it in the trunk, near the amps, leaving the other battery up front). Also, make sure your wiring is up to snuff.

An alternator upgrade might also be worthwhile...

[ruley73]

Originally Posted by jtish

Hello well i am having an issue finding a deep cycle battery that fits into my 02 sc2 without having to do any major modifications. Was wondering if anybody has had any luck with the yellow top optima batteries and if they are even worth my time. I have a kicker zx1000.1 powering a 10" kicker solo baric L7 and a kicker zx 350.4. I need more power and my battery just wont cut it. If anyone knows anything please let me know!!

With that much demand for power, you'll need a high output alternator. Those amplifiers are rated for a total of 1360 watts RMS @ 2 ohms, @ 14.4v input voltage. Your alternator is only capable of producing 96 amps to power the entire electrical system. Your stereo amplifiers alone draw about 94 amps @ 14.4 volts at full power output. No battery will solve your problem.

[jtish]

Well i was looking into an alternator as well too because that seems to be the way to go. Ive looked at all the aftermarket batteries that are available and none of them fit. They are either too tall or too wide. I've also heard great and terrible things about the yellow top optima batteries. I can get a high output alternator that can put out about 170 amps from a local shop for around 150 bucks. Thats looking like its the way to go right now. Now im wondering if that will solve my problem. I am going to do my big 3 wire upgrade and i have silver tinned copper wire that im going to be running to my amps. Should i still get an extra battery to go with it or do you think the alternator will solve all my problems?

[emsvitil]

Odyssey batteries.

Sears sells them as their platinum batteries (and often cheaper than getting the Odyssey).

[fdryer]

Look up Pioneer_Saturn and read his threads.................then pm him for info.

[alordofchaos]

Originally Posted by jtish

Ive looked at all the aftermarket batteries that are available and none of them fit. They are either too tall or too wide.

You can try thinking outside the <engine compartment> box

http://www.saturnfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97934

But yeh, battery alone won't help

[aaron95sl2]

Leave the proper battery in it's proper place, and put more batteries in the trunk, since you're running power wires back there anyway. And yes, you WILL need a higher output alternator.

[DIYguy]

There is of course a perfectly legitimate reason for relocating the battery to the trunk area, which is weight distribution. If you want to be a bit more balanced during hard cornering, you will probably want to do this mod eventually. I have toyed with the idea myself and probably will do it eventually.

The battery in an old Corvette I had was behind the passenger seat for this reason, and the one in my current Beemer is underneath the rear seat and it has a near 50-50 front-rear weight distribution. Our son's MBZ has it mounted in the trunk on the right hand side of the spare wheel well.

On the flip side of this argument an old Porsche 911 I had sported a pair of batteries up front below the headlights immediately behind the bumper.

All of this was either to gain engine compartment clearance or to get better weight distribution for handling. The manufacturers didn't do it to save money for sure.

On a different subject, I ran a yellow top Optima for a while in my SC2. It did not work well, slowly going dead over time despite daily and steady highway driving. Apparently the red top version is the better one for primary use in cars (high current for starting versus deep cycling). OldNuc has posted on the differences between them a number of times. But a yellow top on a separate charging circuit would probably be just fine for a large stereo setup.

By the way, the yellow top mounted on its side in the original battery tray without any issues. I actually called Optima before doing that and they told me that I could mount the battery in any position whatsoever including upside down without any harm, so that was not the problem with it.

Just my 2 cents worth......

[tomdon]

if your batt is a group 75 then an xs power d1200 will fit or you can fit 3 kinetik hc600 where the solo stock batt fits