battery - whats best? suggestions please.

[Ult-Jim]

confusionhunter said:

Hi Ult Jim, I have the Ctek 3.6 and if similar you should always use the winter setting (snowflake) on AGM batteries such as the PC1100. I throughly looked at this , but if in doubt check your Ctek manual.

The charger specs are all slightly different between models. Mine does not have a winter snow flake setting. But my garages are insulated / heated enough to never get near freezing where they are located. Mine has a road / AGM setting both are fine, done no harm for 2 1/2 years.

[ROWDYRENAULT]

Guys: I know some of you get tired of reading my smart ass remarks about dry sumps vs Acusump ect but if I didn't care I would not bother. If you are experiencing hot start problems in England and you then wait a bit and it starts without charging the battery, its not the battery. heating issues I can speak to with confidence engine cooling and hot starts. I have on numerous occasions started the Ultima after driving it for a period of time then refueling which might take 10 minutes which is probably the worst amount of time to let it set and the car starts every time for the last 8 years. Many times this is at well over.... 100... degrees air temp. to further this thought Bob Woods and I have done three trips to San Jose Ca which is 300 miles one way in fairly hot weather 85 plus and he's never had a problem either. These are both L.S. engines in high states of tune with big cams. Let me finish by quoting my dad " when you mop a floor take care of the corners, the center will take care of itself" I see a recurring inclination here on the site, to focus on the big stuff. Take care of the small things like gauge of wire and routing of wire away from hot spots ect . Same thing with cooling the engine small stuff like proper shielding in the inlet area to make sure all the air has to pass through the radiator. In my case, building a proper shroud so at idle all the flow generated by the fans has to come through 100% of the face of the radiator. Just some thoughts, lee

[confusionhunter]

Agreed, Its the starter motor in my case. It becomes less efficient when it gets heat soaked. My starter is on the engine side so suffers more than most. Through marginal gains, more efficient wiring and a beefier battery it has helped the problem that to the point it doesn't occur. Its all inter-related. Its nothing to do with the engine as I uses a torque wrench to check the torque required to turn it cold and hot and it was about the same.