DIY Shorai Battery Cradle Cage Holder Mount Home Depot $20
 

Here is a Cradle to hold The Shorai LFX36L3-BS12 which is one of the larger batterys that should have better juice for DDing. Nothing stock on the car is modified so putting a stock battery in for winter if needed is easy.


Tools needed:
Some form of cutoff wheel
Drill or Drill press
Hand tools to take out and in battery


I always start by weighing everything for now on.


Stock 2017 battery 29.25 lbs
http://i.imgur.com/M1SHHoo.jpg


Shorai 4.75 with terminals added
http://i.imgur.com/72SxJgp.jpg


The 3 main parts from homedepot found somewhere near the lumber. The top piece has legs that will need to be cut off, the 2 side pieces you just cut off one side then mount them both to the top part
http://i.imgur.com/CAuqWrJ.jpg


Here is the Part# for the Base cage
http://i.imgur.com/MrtR0Yc.jpg
Here is the part #for the 2 side cages
http://i.imgur.com/SR1NKs2.jpg


Here is the battery sitting in the base cage once the legs are cut off you can see only about 1/4" of space will be a snug fit once the Shorai foam is added
http://i.imgur.com/WpfO8Pb.jpg


Here is the cage built just used some basic bolts with lock washers nothing fancy here only about 1.3lbs gain
http://i.imgur.com/SSSntxR.jpg


HEre is the battery sitting in the cage on the scale
We will call this 6lbs total for a 23lb LOSS!
http://i.imgur.com/o7uI7MB.jpg


Cage will be mounted directly to this bracket, 2 10mm bolts.
http://i.imgur.com/IMJ1u9M.jpg


Added some leftover heat shield I had while I was waiting for paint to dry.
http://i.imgur.com/sRhVBz1.jpg


The holes already premade on the cage were nearly a perfect line up to the cars bracket. I didn't not plan for this but the car gods where in my favor. Also did a little high heat red paint
http://i.imgur.com/8UFr6n0.jpg


Cage Mounted in the car and also added the foam to the insides.
http://i.imgur.com/V6hQYTO.jpg


Battery mounted with stock bar tie. With the cage its only job now is to hold down instead of laterally. Also used the provided Shorai mount extenders to push the terminals up and to the side which will make the dimensions closer to stock when trying to attach the wires.
http://i.imgur.com/RyxeRRA.jpg




Everything mounted Final pic. Plenty of room around the battery to breathe, Playas need their space!
http://i.imgur.com/wKSptMm.jpg


I have honored the weight reduction gods today with a 23lb saving off the front of the car with a ultra sturdy setup for track days!

Great job! Perfect fit.

Thanks I took the battery with me into the store and just starting testing things that would work. Cheap, easy to build, lightweight, solid, no brainer if your going with one of these battery.


Here is a side pic
http://i.imgur.com/7KApBLr.jpg

What's the heat shield stuff? Seems like that would be a good idea even for stock....

basically a roll with flexible fiberglass on one side and reflective on the front side and sticks on. http://www.ebay.com/itm/FREE-2-DAY-S...72.m2749.l2649


Had some leftover when I coated the oil pan while doing headers. These batterys are more sensitive to temp extremes. Will help a lot in the heat, maybe even serve as a blanket in the cold.

Awesome job! Now make me one plz.

Ha it would probably cost more to ship it to you than build it. If you are serious just take those part #'s into home depot. You will see how its comes together when they are in your hands.

Heres my latest DIY for you guys a rear seat delete
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121565

Awesome, thank you for this, I'm totally copying it!

Thanks just remember this is for the Shorai LFX36L3-BS12 model. Some people use a smaller Shorai which would need different parts to make.

Is it holding up to your winter weather? I just got a "dead cell" report on my stock battery yesterday and figured I'd look for lighter options. I'm seeing a lot of them on here, but it seems the guys using them are in SoCal with that mild weather or they're using something so small it just won't work for my DD needs in my location.

I'm in Oregon's Portland metro area. Not bitter cold, but it has been freezing overnight lately.
So far, I'm leaning to an Odyssey PC925. It shaves a few pounds but, I like the idea of cutting the weight in half, but the Odyssey PC680 seems a bit too small

I like AGM batteries and have had several Optima redtops over the years in my jeep. And one Yellowtop, I avoid these now, that thing was terrible for me and always went dead.

Well my brake line broke in my Cherokee. So I put the stock battery back in as this is going to be my DD for a while. Put Shorai on a tiny Harbor Frieght charger. Thankfully with my setup pulling the cradle back out was easy.

Highly recommend a Shorai tender... It manages individual cells. Less fire risk.

Also, never had issues in winter, though I don't drive a lot and always use the tender in the garage.

Nice DIY.

I sent Shorai a note and they basically advised me against it.

So in other words, they are saying only use the battery when street racing/ autox/ drift/ drag strip and after that when done with purpose to change back to the stock battery.

Amazing DIY!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not designed or tested for that purpose. Very short trips I've actually come home with the battery below its recommended minimum (at least, the charger goes into its safety/recover mode). Also if I leave the dash cams running... a calculated risk on my part. I'm looking at alternatives for camera power while parked, but the short trip thing may still remain (and will bug the heck out of me... why does it happen? no idea!)

Starts the car every time, and I've never run into issues on road trips. However, it's definitely not ideal. You'll probably lower the battery life, and without care you increase the risk of something bad happening slightly. So, yeah - not at all surprised that is their official stance.

Updated with TRUNK setup
 

Redid my setup to be in the trunk. I know people say don't do it! Too much Cable Weight! But I only used 2lbs of 4g to run it. My car has a lot of weight reduction in the rear so my goal has been to get more weight off the front to balance it out.


Ive been running it in the Winter now, it does crank slower but will start after a second (2-3 cranks, 20 Degrees). I drive it 3 times a week 100miles a day.


Made A cage out of aluminum bar from Home Depot and rivets, only added a 1.2lb!

https://i.imgur.com/NKReyFw.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/g5bFL1v.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tMebnKp.jpg




Used the above mentioned Terminals up front with an old rubber exhaust hanger as my connection point. The terminals are a hair small, Pepboys sells terminal Shims to make it wider.
https://i.imgur.com/1B1QdYG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/BOgkZHK.jpg


Would have preferred to put in behind the spare but there wasn't enough flat space, ( to keep center of gravity central). But it fit easy and easy to drill holes in this location. Used the spare tire mount as my ground point
https://i.imgur.com/ZsDGFv1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/OKF3Cio.jpg

I haven't done my research on this yet, but it sounds like a this is a giant LiPo battery. The Shorai tender sounds like a great idea, but my main concern, the alternator will be trying to charge this battery when driving. What's to say it doesn't over-charge or doesn't charge each cell equally? LiPos burst into a nasty lithium fire when the cells get imbalanced, jarred the wrong way, or even punctured (think a car accident).

you can see teh batterys voltage on your dash. it definitely sags when your lights are off and the alternator is off

I guess my point is, the only time the alternator is "off" is when the engine isn't running, since the alternator is belt-driven. Unless there's some kind of controller that cuts off the charging of the battery... am I missing something??

Kind of an interesting side track that I am investigating: The motorcycle part suppliers now have lithium battery voltage regulators that optimize the vehicle charging for lithium batteries.

For example,
https://shop.revivalcycles.com/lifep...tor-rectifier/

I am guessing that the twins' charging is too tightly integrated to the ECU/PCM to change charging schemes but we can dream...

I use a 10mm oversized alt pulley. I don’t remember all the numbers off the top of my head and it was a long time ago I calculated. But it put the alternators battery charging more in line with the shorais recommended charging specs. 2 years now, 2 winters, and zero issues so far.

I certainly won't discredit that it has zero issues so far. By nature I think about latent failures (e.i. fine now, then out of the blue it's on fire). My confidence is slowly increasing though because people are not reporting catastrophic failures.

This is great.
I know you moved it to the trunk already... But any idea if this setup would have any issues with heat due to proximity to rear mounted turbo like the Works kit? I imagine using a heat shield, plus your wrap would be fine, but I read that lithium batteries don't like heat.

Well its since been moved to the behind the backseat, buts its the same battery still running strong.

As to answer your question I guess the only way to is to put a thermometer in the engine bay to see how much heat your turbo generates, then compare it to the recommended specs for the battery.

https://i.imgur.com/cprJCrd.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/MRrarLj.jpg

Anyone have a lead on these batteries. I can't seem to find them anywhere in stock.

It shows the larger battery available on Shorai's website:
https://shoraipower.com/lfx36l3-bs12--p130