New battery for Chim 500?

[Cuchillo]

Hello

I am now the proud owner of a dead battery

So I need to replace it. However what make/model should I go for?

I think I need a really -off, heavy duty battery as in addition of the usual stuff that the TVR needs I also run a Road Angel, iPAQ, Blue Tooth transceiver and phone charger off of it.

Had a quick look in the bible but could not reach a decision.

Any thoughts?

TIA

[Pies]

Min 600cca but bigger is better i was advised to get a diesel battery

[PhilipC]

I think most people go for a leadacid one, but if diesel works then who am I to knock it ;-)

[Cuchillo]

Any one know what the physical dimensions are for a 97 (P) Chim 500 is? I cannot get to the battery to measure it as the car is in the garage with the passenger side close up against the wall

I have just looked at the Varta rage. Are they a good make to go for? Also was wondering what size/rating would work in the car?

TIA

[Bassfiend]

Cuchillo said:

I think I need a really -off, heavy duty battery as in addition of the usual stuff that the TVR needs I also run a Road Angel, iPAQ, Blue Tooth transceiver and phone charger off of it.

Unless you are running those units with the engine off then you shouldn't need anything different to the recommended fitment - plus the actual capacity (measured in amp hours) is very different to the cold cranking capacity (measured in amps). The first figure relates to how much energy the battery stores and the second relates to how quickly the battery can discharge the energy it has whilst maintaining a level of voltage.

Once an engine has started then everything is powered from the alternator (has a higher output voltage than the battery) and the battery is relegated to simply receiving charge to make it recover from the stress of starting.

What I'm trying to say is that if you are driving huge amounts of electrical kit (which you aren't - I used to because I was into car audio *BIGTIME*) then putting a bigger battery *WON'T* help because the alternator won't be able to provide the power to cover it. As you are, your bits you listed are very unlikely to be pulling more than 10 amps in total - so don't worry about fitting something bigger or better - just get what's right.

When I used to do the car audio I used to use what we refered to as aircraft batteries (they were a non spillable lead acid gel battery) - they were pretty small - about twice the size of a burglar alarm standby battery - and had quite a low Ah rating (27Ah IIRC) but they would drop *HUGE* amounts of current at short notice - somewhere in excess of 900A and we used to show the difference between Ah capacity and cold cranking capacity by using one of these small batteries to start the recovery truck out back!

Phil

[jigs]

Battery box is approx. 10'' x 7''.