The Anderson Power Pole connectors just arrived, and I will use these for all connections except for the connection to the positive and negative terminals on the vehicle. I also got two watt meters so I can track and compare the charge/discharge efficiency of lead-acid, LiFePO4, and capacitors.
I worked on my truck yesterday and found that the parasitic drain was 45mA. The backlit thermometer that was wired directly to the battery was responsible for 39mA of that!
After removing the thermometer, the truck had a parasitic drain of only 5.89mA. This drain is likely entirely due to the aftermarket radio since the truck doesn't have any power features. I removed the faceplate of the radio to see if drain further reduced, which it did by a measly 0.3mA. Interestingly, I noticed periodic spikes to 11mA after removing the faceplate, and found this was due to an anti-theft LED that blinks with the faceplate removed.
I'm fairly certain that I can remove the 2 huge and failing batteries and replace them with just a bank of six 3000F capacitors. I would keep the system charged using a 1 watt solar battery maintainer. Unfortunately, I cannot determine the starting amps because my meter only goes to 400A, and the truck consistently exceeds this, although I don't believe it exceeds it by much.
I found that my 2.5W solar battery maintainer is totally inappropriate for maintaining the charge of my 350F (58F series) capacitors. With overcast sky, the panel put out 40mA of charge, and in direct sun late in the evening (6pm) I managed 140mA. It could probably peak at 200mA in direct noon sun.
When I checked on the state of charge, my bank of 6 series 350F capacitors were charged to 16.02v and rising. The balance LEDs were beaming brightly trying to dissipate the extra charge, but were being over-run by the solar panel.
A 1W panel like this is probably more appropriate. At 85mA peak output, it would likely not over-run the balance LEDs on the capacitor bank.