My cables are due to arrive today, so I'll let you know the results by tomorrow. What is it you're going to change out?

 

Subscribed.

 

I'm signing on to this thread too. My battery is 7 years old and I want to be in the know when it comes time to deal with getting a new one.

 

I've been doing some research on the 6awg OEM battery cables and the best info I've found says they are rated for 65 amps. 75 at best, so given that the max current draw of the starter is 200 amps and the OEM battery has 315 CCA the OEM battery cables are way undersized and definetly the weak link in the system.

If your engine ever lugs on start and you smell some burnt insulation, you now know why...

 

Well, I got cables and got them installed. It's like I have half again more starter than I had, so they did what I hoped. It took me about a hour to get them in and it was a little bit of a struggle with the positive cable. I had to rout it a little different than stock, but not a problem. I also removed the armor flex tubing from the stock positive cable, cut it in half, split it length wise on one side and slipped it on the new positive toward the bottom near the starter. Reason being the cable was very close to the metal battery box flang on the bottom. There wasnt much room. It was just a precaution against rub through. All and all I'm pleased.

The Sumax are stiffer than the OEM, but they're thicker. The Sumax measure right at 1/2". The stock cables measure just under 3/8". That's insulation diameter. Oh, and the cable boot on the starter side did fit on the new cable.

http://www.sumax.com/battery_cables.html


Now, with a little riding I'll see if it helped me on my start problem that I have another thread going on. Initial results say yes, but time will tell.

 

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Well, rode about 200 today with a bunch of stops. Not one starting hiccup. The bad news is the weather cooled down, so that messes up my experiment a little, since my real issues are when its hot. Ill keep riding and report back if anything changes. Love the way it cranks though..

 

You've got people waiting, so you might need to wrap a plastic bag around the engine to get the heat up.

 

Funny! Its supposed to be 80 tomorrow and if that doesn't do it it's going to be in the mid 80's Tuesday and Wednesday. If I still have the problem it will show back up T/W for sure.

 

From time to time my ride sounds like it has a hard time getting that first crank to go. It has NEVER failed to start though, no matter how hot or cold the bike is.

So I wonder if I should mess with my battery/cables or not.