My Formula car has the standard quick disconnects for an external battery, kinda like this one from Summit Racing. We're talking about the flat connectors similar to this type (thanks, walmart.com):
I've been searching for a pre-made external jumper battery with these connectors, but so far without much success. Might be a Google-fu failure and me missing the correct technical term for the battery in my vocabulary. Does such a beast actually exist or do I have to take a normal external jumper battery box and change out the terminals?
I did a similar thing in my last truck. I bought some 15' jumper cables and cut 2' off the one end. The 2' section I wired to the battery with ring terminals, and put an Anderson on the other end in the grille. The remaining 13' I put an anderson on the bare end. This way, getting a jump or giving a jump is super simple. Hook up to the other battery and plug into the Anderson. No chance for sparks near the batteries. Don't even have to open the hood.
I say make it. No need to buy. Its pretty simple. Do it just like the picture below, but connect to the starter/solenoid and whatever juice you want on the left end.
That idea, by the way, I stole from tow trucks.
You can get the connector shells and crimp terminals from McMaster, there are a couple different sizes so make sure you order the right ones. I use them together with welding cable to build cables for my winch, quickjack, etc.
You do need a fairly beefy crimp tool to build them. I use the big hydraulic crimp tool from harbor freight, seems to work well.
Fork truck batteries use that type of connector but their 300+LBS...
