extending the battery power cable

extending the battery power cable

My OEM power cable is about 2 inches shorter for my battery when I moved it to make room for my CAI, how do I go about extending the power cable?

I don't even know where the source of power cable starts from in the car. Should I just replace the whole cable for a longer one or cut and splice another piece of wire on there? And how would I splice a wire this big of a gauge?

thanks.

I would recommend Getting a whole cable. Read vamps Awsome DIY on it http://vamp.darkravers.net/TipsRelocatingBatteryToTrunk.cfm

I havent done it yet by the way but Im going to even tho I dont have a CAI yet =) but it will be better to go ahead and replace the whole wire and at that get a upgrade to what you got for performance =)

good link, but he does not detail how he extended the power cable to the trunk. I just need to know where the power cable starts from that leads to the + on the battery.

Just keep in mind amps and amps required as you increase the length...in addition to the alternator powering it...sorry I dunno about the lengthening thing...my guess would be to get the proper gauge wireing...mounting two remote posts in place of the battery under the hood...and eplacing the entire wire with the longer wires to the trunk

i did it the ghetto way, i took high strand 4 guage wire and i twisted it around the stock wire and i tapped it, as far as i can see, i got no probs....

If it is really that short - only by a few inches, you could pick up an power block (kind of like an adapter) for the battery. Its usually a metal extension for the battery terminal (has extra set screws in the middle to run power to high current audio equipment - your existing battery cable connects to the new terminal provided. Don't have to run cables or anything else - least amount of work.

is my idea really that bad?

Only if moisture gets in there and starts to corrode the bare copper wires on the plug end.

When you make different (electrochemically different) metals touch each other - you may see some galvanic corrosion of one of the metals. They rate these on a scale called the "Anodic Index" - if the index of one metal is much higher than the other for a given contact area, the base metal (anode) will see accelerated corrosion. This corrosion will decrease the amount of juice you put down the line and potentially heat the affected wire enough to burn off the insulation.

You can try and solder the end on or better yet - splice the copper wire to copper wire. If you have been OK so far - that's probably becuase you taped the hell out of that connection and used decent quality material.