Apparantly its not good to not start your car for extended periods of time!

With 12,500 miles on my car my stock battery wouldn't hold a charge, so I figured I would go with an Optima red top.

I called the local Advanced Auto Parts yesterday and tried to get an Optima 35R. The guy told me that Optima doesn't make a 35R, but they have a 34R that is fairly close to what the 35R would be. I ordered the 34R and it came in this morning.

I got the stock battery out super easy. I removed the trip piece over the battery, and the passengers side part of the cowl vent. I unscrewed the battery bracket and the terminals and pulled the battery out.

I dropped the red top in and immediately the problems begin (like normal). The battery actually fit very well, BUT it was too short. The red top is a full 1" shorter then the OEM battery. This isn't a big deal, except for the fact that the OEM bracket wouldn't work with such a short battery. I checkded out my options and came to the conclusion that the safest thing to do was to actually raise the battery tray up an inch. I ran to Home Depot and picked up four 8mmx40mm (I think) bolts, eight 5/6" washers, and four 1"x1/2" nylon spacers. This seemed like the best idea ever, but I underestimated the difficulting of installing the spacers underneath the battery tray AND getting the bolts to line up with the holes. After about 30 mintues of messing with it I finally got all four bolts to bite. I dropped the battery in and the bracket would now work, but, now the long bolt that runs down to the bottom of the tray was sticking up too high, and wouldn't let the plastic piece sit correctly. I hacked an inch off of the bolt with my band saw and it went back on perfect.

Since this was the 'R' version the terminals were backwards, which made them correct for the G35. The terminals mounted perfect, with no modifications. The bracket tightened up and secured the battery perfect.

I was expecting a 30 minute install, but ended up spending closer to three hours on the entire thing.

Oh, also... I found out the hard way that when the battery is disconnected and reconnected my KPtechnologies window up module activates and raises the windows. A side effect of this is the doors lock. Well, sure enough, my keys were in the igniton when I hooked the battery up. My doors locked, and my windows went up locking my keys in my car. Luckily I had my spare set not too far from me, so I got lucky on that one!

Once everything was done I started the car up, it cranked with plenty of juice and the starter sounded stronger then I ever remember hearing it.

 

LOL, this is funny. I was going to post my experiences with my Optima today too. So I guess I will do so here. I purchased an Optima YELLOW top D35. They DO make a D35 which is a reverse post battery (there is no "R" in the name). So the terminal IS on the right side. I actually didn't have as many problems. The battery came with a spacer that you snap onto the bottom, and it raises it to the exact height that the factory battery is. I re-attatched all of my connections, and the car started right up. The BEST part is that I was experiencing the "shudder" or bucking when the bass hit "I have a JL 450/4 and a 500/1), and now the bucking is 99.99% gone!! I'm very pleased with my experience. Next I am going to upgrade "the big 3" and some other grounds, and I expect the other .01% of the bucking to go away.

 

i have a yellow top D51R works great. They do make a D35R but you have to custom order them and I believe it will put the posts back into the normal orientation lol.

 

I wonder if the redtop 35 is reversed then without the 'r' designation? I wish I would have had a spacer, that would have made it cake to put the thing in!

 

YT 51R fit no problem, it's a little taller than stock battery but way thinner and the stock bracket still works np

 

Yes, the redtop 35 is a reverse post design. They call it a European configuration, so there is no "R" in the name. It is specifically designed to fit most European and Japanese cars. Check out this site. It shows the configurations of the posts and they have GREAT prices.

http://www.1st-optima-batteries.com/index.html

 

Doh! I hate spur of the moment purchases! I need to be a little more patient and do a little more research before picking up the phone!

 

It's alright. The 34R has higher cca and ca's. So it's all good!

 

funny how you weren't starting your car cause you were driving your dodge viper or whatever else you own these days lol, i might let my battery die under those circumstances too!

 

Ha, I don't ever drive the car because it spend 3.5 months in the body shop after gettting Tboned and 3 months at another shop having the motor rebuilt/TT installed. For the record, my other car was far from a Viper, it was a Mini Cooper!

 

lol sweet I was thinking of BBAT my bad. that sucks about the accident, but rules about the TT, must be nice to have her back. mini's rock too