New EFI - Optima or Conventional Battery? Which is better?

[old66tiger]

Just installed a new FAST EFI system including a new MSD box and a new electric fuel pump. I sold my old NAPA battery and have been looking around for a battery with a dual terminal to make the connection of the electronics to the battery a snap. I was set to buy a new conventional battery when I started pondering an Optima. I was looking at the red top battery, but it seems as if there have been too many failures on these and they don't like periodic use as much as the yellow tops. The yellow top is $169 locally OR I can buy a 7 year warranty lead acid battery for $73. At more than double the cost of the lead acid battery, will the Optima be that much better than the lead acid battery? Seems as if I can replace the lead acid unit twice as often and still come out ahead.

[old66tiger]

Well, I decided against the Optima battery. The yellow top only has a 2 year warranty and at $179 at the local parts place, that is too rich for me. I ended up with a East Penn AGM style battery. 1000 cca, 8 year warranty for $110.

[bg5512]

I've had bad experiences with the Optima, but my cars don't get driven very often in the winter and get drawn down a lot. I don't think they're worth the xtra $$

[ModedCB2]

older post but worth a comment...

Optima and AGM style batteries alike do NOT like to get drawn down to below 10 volts. Especially for extended periods of time. They don't recover like a traditional lead-acid battery from severe drain cycles.

Solution: Battery Tender+... wire it up with the provided pigtail and when you park the Beast, plug it in. Simple solution.

the optima red top in my king cobra has not seen key activation in almost 4 years. Alarm is still active and working fine. Battery is almost 8 years old.

Same for the Optima Red in my WRX daily driver. When I know I am going out on a work trip for more than 2 weeks, I plug it in to the Battery tender, just to be safe.

Hands down, if you own a play toy that dioesn't get driven weekly, Battery Tender or C-whatever is the other one that is getting big... some sort of trickle/maintainer is critical part of your budget.

Rob