I am in the market of purchasing a new battery and figured i'd repalce/upgrade the battery cables as well. But first, a few questions:

1. Recommendation on batteries? I'm leaning toward the Optima Yellowtop. It's a little overkill for the present day mods but investment for the future. Plus, i've found a few that aren't that much more than the average battery. Thoughts? Concerns? Experiences?

2. Recommendation on cables? I have done zero research as of yet - so open to suggestions. Also, when looking at the current cables, and attempting to trace where they lead, it just seems like a jumbled mess. I'll post pics for reference in a few minutes, and hopefully ya'll can help out.

Thanks!

An Optima yellow top is a great choice and I highly recommend it. As for the cables, I'll be honest, I doubt you're going to want to tackle that one. Even in the future if you decide to add some accessories (sound system, lights, etc.) I think the factory cables will work fine. The negative cable is super easy to replace, but the positive cable is going to be pretty difficult to replace (unless you just run a completely new one outside of the factory cable sleeve). Regardless, if you do get accessories, you will most likely wire any high-current accessories directly to the battery (via a relay), so a larger positive battery cable won't make any impact. However, if you do add accessories and have them directly wired to the battery, then you can just upgrade the negative battery cable later on.

So this all looks fine/normal?



Seems a little frayed/worn to me but you'd know better.

Bump...

Also, what makes the positive cable so difficult?

Ron Burgundy wrote:Bump...

Also, what makes the positive cable so difficult?

If you wanted to run the new cable in the factory cable sleeve (even though there really is no reason to) then you would have to remove all of the wire sleeve and electrical tape all the way from the battery to the alternator. The recommended method would be to just run new cable outside of the factory cable sleeve. It wouldn't be too difficult, just a PITA.

The negative cable is comparatively much easier since it's just held down by two bolts and a zip-tie. It took me maybe ten minutes to completely remove the negative battery cable (assuming it's the same setup on the 3.3L).

As far as your positive cable pics, it doesn't actually look frayed or broken, just a little oxidation. Just clean off the oxidation and wrap any exposed cable in high-grade electrical tape (or liquid electrical tape).

I have a 1999 Nissan Sentra 1.6L automatic and my positive battery terminal looks almost identicle to the one pictured above. However the red plastic connector is attached to a flat piece of metal which is attached to the positve cable clamp. The other day the battery and brake light came on the dash and found that the red plactic connector is not firmly attached to the flat piece of metal. It easily slides off. When I push it back the dash lights go out but dont want to keep doing this. I have tried researching this part online but can not find a listing or what it is even called. Can someone please help me here.

if you do end up getting new wires, i would get 0 gauge cables from this site here: http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetai ... dID=KFX0BK
and running it along side your stock wiring, so you'd have stock wiring and this aftermarket wiring in use.

i cut off my stock battery terminals and put these new ones in, kept the stock wiring and also added a 4 gauge negative cable from battery terminal to the alternator:

the red cable you see on the left, goes to the negative on the alternator and the blue cable (4 gauge) on the right goes to the amplifier for my system in the trunk

RED for a negative lead????

Chuck

yeah i had some extra red cable so i had used that for the negative terminal, i know my car so i know that the red negative cable wont confuse me lol, someone else might get confused but if it was at a shop getting repaired by any chance, id let them know that that is the negative side lol

Optima Yellowtop would be my go to choice. I used to have a red top, and the only advantage I think was a bit higher cold cranking amps, however, every time I left the lights on, it would kill the red top's capacity bit by bit. Yellow tops are dual cycle, which means they can be discharged, and charged up again without major damage to the battery. I still leave my lights on sometimes, but if I come back within and hour or two, the car starts up just fine (same can't be true of the red top I had before).