What do battery 'cranking amps' mean?
I know that dif bats have dif ratings, but just what does it all mean?

 

I believe "Cold Cranking Amps" means the amount of amps a fully charged battery will apply to your system when you turn the key.....but I'm probably wrong, LOL

 

That's kinda what I figured, but how many amps will a bat put out?
Will they go as high as 100, or higher?
I was told that some big rig bats will put out as much as 750 amps while a car bat will put out around 75 or so, but I really don't know.
Can someone please clearify?

 

that is a peak rating in amps that a battery will put out, amps push volts 75 amps might make your solenoid click . the higher amp rating you have will give more power during start up when you put in a high torque starter or have a high compression motor or cold days, the battery has a higher load on it, so the higher the amp rating the more raw juice to start up with. general v8 would need 300-500 amps to start based on current draw of the starter under load. 600-700 is where you have plenty of reserve for heavy current draw. the amp rating will have nothing to do with the time a battery can run at a specific draw, just how much is availible for a quick burst.

 

The length of time a battery will last under load is the amp-hour rating. So many amps per so many hours. As in CCA ratings, more is better. Using the water analogy for electricity,volts corresponds to pressure,amps correspond to flow rate and resistance is restriction or friction losses.
Ron

 

Great info guys,
Thanks for a better understanding.

 

I have a 950 CC Amp battery in my '87.
I guess average CC Amps are around 6-650?

 

Cranking amps are a rating of relative power the battery will provide. Supposedly it is the amps it will provide to your starter when you hit the key, but in reality that may vary for a variety of reasons: integrity of the battery clamp connections, size and length of cables, type and condition of starter, temperature outside, etc. There is an SAE standard on how batteries are tested for the rating: very technical, etc., details that are unimportant here, other than the fact that all batteries are subjected to the same test to determine their rating..

Thus, a battery rated 900 amps might provide only 850 amps in your car when you turn the key, or 915, etc., you just can't be sure without a lot of testing (and if the car starts, why bother?). But what you can depend on is that it will provide just about twice as much as one rated at 450 amps, etc.

 

More than you ever wanted to know about batterys,
http://www.exideworld.com/faq/faq_auto.html#cca PG.