Anybody use a Lithium Iron battery in their motorcycle? I’m having starting issues. When warm it literally starts by touching the start button. Colt weather is a bitch. The bike likes one hard start with the choke off and then one good solid start with the choke on. It’s really not hard to get it started if it’s in the garage on a charger. I need 15-20 seconds of serious start power. The factory battery (new) just isn’t up to the task on the road so I’m looking for a low maintenance battery that has a lot of CCA.
And FYI it’s been like that from day one. The carb’s are rebuilt and it runs like a Swiss watch after warming up.
From what I’ve heard about the cheap LI motorcycle batteries, they’re basically taking advantage of the fact that LI can put out more cranking amps relative to total amp hours than a traditional battery. So if you’re relatively sure your bike will start quickly, you can get away with a smaller battery. So probably not great for what you’re describing, nor if you have a bunch of electrical goodies on your bike. (There are also of course really expensive LI motorcycle batteries that do have similar Ah to a traditional battery but weigh significantly less.)
I’ve got an AGM battery on my Kawasaki dual sport bike. I’m not sure if on a good day it performs any better than the stock flooded cell unit, but it seems to be a lot more predictable. Like sometimes I’d come out and the old flooded cell battery would be inexplicably dead, but it’d charge up and work just fine. Granted, I do think a lot of that was from the electroytes sloshing around when the bike gets dropped off-road, so perhaps that’s a bit of a dual sport issue. Having the AGM battery that just works is great, though.
This is one of those situations where cost isn’t the driving force. I have a very small battery box so size does matter. I want more CCA. But I want it to be reliable. And by reliable that means charging off the alternator and staying charged.
Right now I’ve got a float charger on it which is fine at home but I’ve had to jump start it away from home when the temperature gets down to the 30’s.
Lead acid has the benefit that it doesn’t degrade too badly in cold conditions.
You need to fit a battery that has the high enough CCA spec right, or else you get problems like that. just because it works when you first tested, doesn’t mean it will always work, unless the CCA spec is high enough. (no problem with having a higher CCA spec battery than needed, if it fits.)
I have a lithium iron battery on my motorcycle. It has always started my bike fine, even after sitting unused for many weeks. That is except when my first LiFePo battery went bad after 6 months, and was not capable of doing much of anything. It was replaced under warranty, and the replacement has been fine in the two years since.
According to the marketing literature, one advantage of the LiFePo batteries is that they are physically smaller, which means a more powerful battery can be fit in the same space a lead acid battery would go. I got one mostly because I needed a new battery, and I could spend <$100 more than an AGM battery for several pounds of weight savings. I’m not sure if it was a good trade off, but people will spend $1000+ on a new exhaust to lose a few pounds (among other things).