Hey Paul,
This past Spring Carlisle a good friend of mine who is a C2 NCRS judge told me about how the NCRS gang are cutting the bottom out of original batteries and stripping the plates (guts) out and then putting in a high energy small battery (Miata battery and others) inside and hooking up the terminals from the battery placed inside to the underside of the original battery terminals. He later sent information who I passed onto my friend and bingo, it's done. What a great idea if one has an original case and how many can say hey "that's the original battery in there!"
A note: Cutting the bottom out of the old battery and stripping the plates and guts out is a time consuming and messy deal. Well worth it but again, not a quickie job!
No, the original born with battery is back in the car and the latter service replacement will be a spare for possible use latter on another car.
Hey Chick, how is he using the original battery?
Paul