Yay, got a new Mirage toy just before new year's vacation. :)
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Yay, got a new Mirage toy just before new year's vacation. :)
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So, I murdered my battery over the weekend. I left the key in the car overnight after thinking I would go back out to work on the glove box mod... Doh. I put it on a charger for 2 days, but the damage was already done. Looks like I'll be finding a new battery real soon.
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Battricide!
Yep! Oh well, this just gives me a perfect opportunity for another mod... :)
Swarthy got a new battery last night. :encouragement:
I did not replace it with the standard starting battery, but rather a group 24 deep cycle battery. These are also called marine batteries. They are designed to be discharged and recharged where a starting battery isn't.
The new battery is slightly larger than the OE battery. Its just about the same height (a little taller), the same width, and a bit longer by an inch or so.
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It fits into the car pretty nice. It is at the extreme of having enough threads on the hold down brackets, but it does work. However, there is a problem where it won't just drop in. The positive and negative terminals are on opposite sides as the OEM battery. There is no way the OEM post connectors have enough slack to make things work, so I had to get some parts to make things work. I got some extension cables. One end of the cable has a female automotive post connector and the other has a flat connector with a hole in it. So, with the flat connector I got a male automotive post with a bolt through it so they can bolt together effectively making an extension cable.
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With the extension cables put together, I was able to install the battery in the car and even hook it up properly. I used a couple zip ties to keep it somewhat tidy. I'll probably clean it up a bit more when its not hovering near 0F outside.
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Looks beefy.
Maybe copy this battery info into a new thread - how to upgrade to a bigger capacity battery?
I can absolutely do that.
This weekend, I really didn't feel like doing much car work, but I had to do something. I decided to finish up the grill block that I started a couple weeks ago. I had it all cut out, I just had to figure out a way to mount it. I ended up just going with some black zip ties.
Before. As you can see, from the factory, almost half of the grill is already blocked off. Nice job Mitsu!
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Grill block cut out of color matched (its just black) coroplast.
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Finished product.
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I wrote up a DIY thread on it.
Did you notice any effect on warm-up on your commute today?
Its really hard to say, but I would say yes, it did seem to warm up faster. I also took a couple trips over the weekend and from a cold soak it definitely seemed to heat up faster. The real test will be coming home from work today. Its a much more familiar trip. I know in general what temperature the engine should be at certain points in the drive. So, I'll be much better able to answer that tonight.