Being that you live in Canada, I wouldn't even consider going to a small battery / short UICP. Especially because you already have an aftermarket one.

In all reality you will not notice extra response or HP, but you will notice the smaller battery.

 

i dunno why you guys are saying its not worth it, just so you know your taking two big kink bends out and removing 2 ft of piping needed. Tell me how its not gonna improve his power or throttle response. Question is op what mods you have? id say an uicp should come before an intake mani and tb upgrade. Now your basic setup including ic and full piping a tbe a 3 port boost solenoid fuel injectors and pump should make good power. It might be miniscule gains with an uicp on a stock turbo, but if he ever plans to go bigger, that will become a restriction not to mention if your running stock length piping your adding two more couplers in a bended pipe area, which hell have less headaches with couplers popping off. Now before you say you dont have that happen, or havent, i doubt it. SS piping painted flat black cant get much more factory looking then that haha

 

If posed with the same decision I will go with small battery in the trunk and short-route UICP.

Small battery in the trunk will the Evo better weight distribution, faster acceleration, and cleaner engine bay. The first time I relocated the stock battery it took my friend and I and hour to get it all done. Now my aim is to lose even more weight and get a LI-ion battery.

Short-route UICP is no-brainer after that.

 

^^ I thought about that too, I ran a mini battery kit with short route uicp for a while, and come winter time, i had occasional start issues with it, plus system in the trunk didnt handle it well. I went an optima red top swap with a relocation kit in the trunk, and for those that complain about weight, what are we talking 50 lbs of weight with battery cables and box to do. Not to be a dick but im sure some of you could lose some weight, you go on a diet and exercise there you go in 6 months your car will be back to previous weight with you in it. haha Besides your battery will last you at least 2x as long being theres no heat in the trunk, compared to underhood.

 

the absence of any boost leaks, exhaust leaks, improper sealing gaskets, leaky throttle body seals all outweigh the short route uicp. The best throttle response is when there are absolutely no leaks anywhere

 

Thats my install. Idk I thought it looked rather clean. And the box is NHRA certified but I haven't really tried to pass tech with it yet. I don't see why it should be a problem since its vented, and encloses the battery from the passenger compartment with a metal case. More importantly for me though is it keeps the battery away from high road racing heat (I think thats what killed my 1000cca battery in 1 year) and shifts a lot of weight back. I'd say the whole kit weighed something less than 10lbs.

 

Sorry not clean in my book. Never seen heat bother a bat up front. Also the safety in back is so much wose. Wire of that size ran front to back of car can be dangerous in a big crash.

Good job on by being leagl though.

If the weight in the back really helps then that is the only good I see from a bat in the back.

How are you killing the alt? Is it ran all the way back or are using a relay setup on the alt.

 

Yea its still clearly aftermarket. To be cleaner I guess you'd need a different box and cover it with similar fabric to trunk liner. Other than that maybe you could mount a minibatt behind the little cardboard door area thats opposite to the windshield washer fluid. The wire is also run inside the cabin, in the door sills like you would for a subwoofer. I didn't want to take it out of the interior and run it along the floor pan because a) wanted to keep drilling to a minimum, and b) safety. As you said in a big crash the wire could get pinched, cut, etc. and create a sparking/fire danger. I can't imagine it being messed with along the door sill though. Thats a 2ga wire btw.

Its a good 50lbs moved to the back. My battery is a big ****, thats why I'm so surprised it died in a year. My car weighed front to rear @ 58.x% to 41.x% when it was corner balanced (3249lbs overall).

Yea thats the thing that I was worried about for tech. I don't have a kill switch. I'll probably wire one up next summer. It would have to be in series with the positive batt wire and the alternator charging circuit. So yea I would need to run 2 more wires from the alternator to the kill switch. But I didn't see any reference to it in the rule book. Still I've had some techs say some random things to me....in either case drag racing is not really the focus of my car.

OP: I run a stock route UICP still. I wouldn't run a minibatt in Canadian winters. Especially in AB winters. For the other people reading here, its mandatory in Alberta to have an engine block heater to register your car. And many hotels and I think malls too (?) have places where you can plug in your block heaters. Your car might not start without it. THATS how cold it gets.

 

going from oem uicp to a ets short route I wouldnt say the gains were as noticeable as when I did my ets licp. The reason I ordered a short route uicp is because I relocated my battery to the trunk. I also like the way the short route routes the pipes further away from the engine to help keep the radiated heat away from the pipes. I think between the relocating of the battery for better weight distribution and routing the pipes further away from the engine than how oem is designed is a benefit enough to have this setup.

 

mini battery in the engine bay is not a bad idea. It will help crank the car easier since the smaller batteries have less cca. I had a pc680 and never had issues. My car is not dd and would regularly sit for a week or so. I just never liked the slow cranking so I ditched it in favor of a much larger battery. Its heavier but the weight is distributed in the rear which isnt as bad since the evo is so front heavy as it is.

Relocating my battery I also cleaned up a lot of the oem cables setup for the oem battery. There were a few ground cables that werent being used, and some other cables I was able to shorten and re route to help reduce weight and clean up the engine bay. I used 0 gauge cable, about 13 ft iirc and it wasnt that heavy. Remember that the weight of the 0 gauge cable is also distributed evenly across all 13 ft, and its routed low along the floor of the car. I am not necessarily thrilled about the weight of my new 95 ah 850A EN battery, but I would rather ensure I get clean voltage and give up 10-15 lbs. of weight savings, which being towards the rear side of the car isnt as bad anyhow.


pics of 0 gauge cable being routed






here is where I cleaned up the oem positive side cables. I shortened and mounted this setup on under the strut tower bar near the firewall. Im not quite finished with it, but I put a little cap on there with a sticker to show positive. Im wanting to use this as a jumper point under the hood. There was quite a bit of wiring I had to resolder and delete, along with replacing with thicker gauge cable. Still a work in progress, it will be cleaned up more still.