gapimpin

got my bird a little over a year ago and it came with a 450cca 550ca walmart special battery. it worked fine when i had my 305tbi but after converting to a high compression 355 it cranks really slow. in the mornings when the engine is cold i can get one good crank out of it but if it doesnt fire i have to jump it. it will start turning really slow and when i let off of it i can see the pulleys spin backwards a little. when its hot i cant get it to start it will crank over very slow and just kill the battery. replacements from vatozone are anywhere between 450cca "listed for manual tranny only" all the way up to 720cca. if i put the 720cca 900ca battery in its not going to negativly affect anything will it?

stingerssx

No problem!!

With the higher compression motor, your starter is working harder to spin the crank. Which in turn draws more amperage. So getting a higher cranking amp battery will help your situation.
The higher the cranking amps the battery has, the more power it will put out. The longer amp hour rating, the longer time it will have power.

The next step would be to get a higher torque starter.

Then you should insulate it from heat, esspecially if you are running headers. Heat sheild, wrapping it, whatever.

The only thing that you may be concerned with if you get a higher CA battery is the output of your alternator.

Take it to Autozone, (or "Vato"zone) and have them check it. They will do it for free.

I have an '81 Elcamino with a stock 3.8L V6 and I put a 1100 CA battery in it and never had a problem. I did have a system in it though. But when someone needed a jump, it would always get them going.

gapimpin

thanx i figured i needed a new battery anyways since i do plan on running a system. and i purchased a "mini starter" from procomp but its just as big as my regular starter and the mounting block on it was set up for bbc and sbc bolt patterns so it hits my headers and i couldnt get it in... im gonna try to cut it to fit and that should take care of any of my remaining starting problems.