So I am doing some searching in the battery department now..

as I am slowly building my gs500 to bratstyle, cleaning everything up under the seat, I will change the battery for an agm battery (lithium is too expensive).

so I can make a battery tray under the seat and lay the battery on its side. I am searching for the flattest battery I can find which provide the right specifications.

so stock specifications are 12V, 11ah and 160 CCA
the motobatt MB10U is a good replacement, but I would like to find something shallower than that.
the motobatt MB9U is 0.55 inch shallower, also has 11ah, but only 140 CCA... would this be anough? The lowest temperatures we get here are 14°F. although it doesn't get much below 30°F most of the time.

does anyone know of any other options I could look at? kind of in the same price range

and to extend the question.. how low do you think you can go in AH?
is there any difference between stock lead acid and agm? regarding possibilities in lower specs?

How likely are you to be starting the bike when it's 14 degrees?

IMHO the CCA difference (140 vs. 160) is not that important. But I am no expert. We have heat problems here, not cold.

The ampacity (aH) affects how much "charge" it stores, or in other words, how long the battery lasts once charged without being recharged. Again, IME the stock battery is far more capacity than is needed for a motorcycle typically to just start the bike. Leave it parked a long time with the light on and you might find a lower ampacity battery will not start the bike. IME with a stock-type battery, it will start the bike several times and even run the bike for an hour or so (lights on etc.) on a full charge even with a nonfunctional charging system. Again, the stock battery is overkill under normal circumstances, but you may need overkill if you ever wind up stranded somewhere, doing a field repair in a parking lot or on the side of the road, and have to crank the bike over a whole lot to get it to start.

AGM batteries are lead acid batteries with various advantages, which you can read about here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/absorbent_glass_mat_agm

Personally I'd never buy anything for my vehicles besides an AGM (or maybe eventually LiFePo for a motorcycle), even if simply for the fact that they last about 3-4x as long as ordinary wet-cell lead acid batteries.

Quote from: mr72 on August 23, 2017, 10:26:31 AM
How likely are you to be starting the bike when it's 14 degrees?

IMHO the CCA difference (140 vs. 160) is not that important. But I am no expert. We have heat problems here, not cold.

The ampacity (aH) affects how much "charge" it stores, or in other words, how long the battery lasts once charged without being recharged. Again, IME the stock battery is far more capacity than is needed for a motorcycle typically to just start the bike. Leave it parked a long time with the light on and you might find a lower ampacity battery will not start the bike. IME with a stock-type battery, it will start the bike several times and even run the bike for an hour or so (lights on etc.) on a full charge even with a nonfunctional charging system. Again, the stock battery is overkill under normal circumstances, but you may need overkill if you ever wind up stranded somewhere, doing a field repair in a parking lot or on the side of the road, and have to crank the bike over a whole lot to get it to start.

AGM batteries are lead acid batteries with various advantages, which you can read about here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/absorbent_glass_mat_agm

Personally I'd never buy anything for my vehicles besides an AGM (or maybe eventually LiFePo for a motorcycle), even if simply for the fact that they last about 3-4x as long as ordinary wet-cell lead acid batteries.

thanks for the info!

I use the bike all year, including freezing cold.. only when there's ice I leave the bike parked. not because I love it so much, but I don't have free car parking where I work. It's only about 5 miles, but I am not good friends with a bicycle

I was also thinking about 11 ah being unnessecary, but how low do you think it is still good enough (not borderline...)

Quote from: Peter Tez on August 25, 2017, 03:38:44 AM

I use the bike all year, including freezing cold.. only when there's ice I leave the bike parked.

High five to someone else who rides in freezing temperatures!

Good thread btw too

yeah!! high five 

so, just to continue, I plan on trying out this battery http://www.motobatt.com/MB7BB
it has 9 ah, a whopping 150 CCA for my winter riding and is only 2.36 inch wide...

I will try to get back here after winter to say if it was a succes, for the sake of future forum searchers