# BATTERIES



## lone star (May 22, 2003)

what are some of the key things to look for when buying batteries for (1) hopping (2) lay and play on the weekends. there are alot of factors from size, weight, CCA, discharge, battery life, price, gel or acid. etc. 

what is the difference between at battery with 600CCA and a battery with 1100 CCA. what about those industrial batteries that cost $250 each new, but only put out 600 CCA? what about those batteries that weight 100 lbs, compared to 55 lbs.....doesnt the type of battery you would use in a high perfomance setup drastically affect the overall performance of the car?


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## AndrewH (Dec 12, 2002)

People say you get what you pay for, this is just as true when it comes to batteries as with anything.650cca is ok for street cars. hoppers usually go for at least 900ccas per battery. Any less than that and the motor will not turn at its full potential.

Most people use cheap starter batteries with high CCAs, and little requard to other specs,just to keep prices down, but a deep cycle battery is what I personally use.,however, the price gets up there by the time you have a 1000cca deep cycle battery.

Another spec to look at for a street car is amp hours or reserve minutes. this is how long a battery will last under a given draw. around 100amp hours or 200 reserve minutes is a good rating. Whatever batteries you have, you still need to charge them before they 'need' it.

Your best bet is to work with a distributor on bulk pricing,or find some case blemished B stocks. I've seen $300 batteries sold to retail end users for roughly $65 each because they bought a dozen. And I've seen $100 batteries go for $25 because of case blems. If you don't ask, you won't find out.

I opt for sealed batteries, because I don't like fumes and battery piss in the car with me,but there are alot of decent service cell batts that won't leak under normal use. You'll just have to ask around. You just need to keep the trunk open when you charge them. and clean the terminals periodically.

Most people are set on group 31s,because within a given series, a 31 will have more of everything, including weight. But thats not to say that there are not 27s and 29s out there that could beat out 99% of the batteries commonly used.

Wet lead acid vs agm vs gelcell..

a wet battery, unless a maintenence free battery will need to have the levels checked in each cell. improper charging will boil the water out,so it constantly needs to be checked unless your using a smart charger.They discharge by themselves and can suffer temperature damage if you dont keep a close eye on them. With the maintenence free batterys, you really need to go by specific recomendations instead of specs, because most of these are designed to fail 1-3 months after the warranty expires, more of a un-maintainable battery rather than a mainentence free battery. Same with alot of the dual purpose batterys.

AGM batteries. charge voltage is about the same as lead acid,but most AMGs are a recombinant battery,so you can't boil out the liquid, it has no where to go.They are 'starved electrolite' which means the materials inside are not compeley soaked. So you can burn a hole in the side of the battery, and they still wont leak. AGMs also generally have a much lower internal resistance,so theres no limit to the discharge current, and no heat buildup. They have a slower self discharge that wet cells andA, since the material inside is not flooded, they will not suffer any freeze damage.

Gel cells - Just like AMGs, they wont spill, even if cut open. The chemical makeup is alot more similar to the lead acid batteries than agm,but since the gases have no where to go, you can damage the cells by charging at too many amps. The charge voltages are also different, so you have to use special gelcell circuit smart chargers, or you will just ruin your batts.They gel cells cannot be desufulated, the gel will actually get permanant voids in it.

So thats basically the difference between batts. There's just as much hype with batts as any other part of the car, so you really need to ask recommendations from honest factual people in all lines of battery usage before you go out and spend your money on what you heard was a good battery cough*yellowtop*cough


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## lone star (May 22, 2003)

good info. ive ran 20$ recycled batteries and ive ran 100$ seal acid batteries. ive never built a competition hopper. only basic setups. on 1 of my car i have seal acid batteries, with tin plated cable lugs and i have yet to see any corrosion and its been lifted for almost a year now. i just bought some batteries that gel cell batteries. that retail for 260 bucks, and i got them for less than 1/5 of that, and was just wondering what is the hype about the batteries. me personally. the most important thing in a battery is how long will it last before it has to be recharged. 

i just wonder why someone would spend thousands and hours of time fine tuning a setup. with all the right ingredients and then use sub-standard batteries. to me thats like building a race car and gutting out the car, upgrading suspension, fiberglass front clip, and then in the end use a v6 motor...dont make sense.


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## artsar (Jun 10, 2009)

Since i plan to run a 36V single bank system on a street car with 2 pumps (not planning to hop, just build a car that goes up and down) 3 gel cel deep cycle 650CCA batteries should do the trick?


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## lone star (May 22, 2003)

> _Originally posted by artsar_@Sep 29 2009, 05:18 PM~15221765
> *Since i plan to run a 36V single bank system on a street car with 2 pumps (not planning to hop, just build a car that goes up and down) 3 gel cel deep cycle 650CCA batteries should do the trick?
> *


you should be good, if installed good, 3 solenoids per pump u shouldnt have any problems for a long time


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