I know you're mad at the yb16al-a2 wet cell battery ... but I'd like to share my thoughts about the newer battery ducati uses. (in all the 01 and up bikes)
We've got a few monsters for the purpose of going to vendors for R&D. These bikes go there and sit around ... sometimes for a year. I was stunned when Fred the 620 went away for a year and how his battery fared.
He hadn't been started even one time. Nothing was done to prep him for the lay up. Got him back and the battery was absolutely flat. The battery tender didn't want to do anything, so I put the car-type charger on at the 2Amp setting. The next day, I put on the Tender. The following day, Fred started up and you would never know that the bike had been sitting. The old wet cell would never have come back from that! I am truly amazed at how good the new batteries are.
In 2001, most Ducati models still had battery boxes for the larger wet cell battery but the YT12BBS was installed in its place. Most folks can make a YT12BBS work where the wet cell lived before. The 12 is thicker than the wetcell, but only by the amount of the rubber liner (for the wet cell) found in most boxes. The battery is shorter, so it may need to be turned around and cables re-reouted to hook up the leads. In several years of selling the 12s to customers, only 1 asked for a return because they couldn't make it work. IMO, they didn't want to take the time to sort out the different options for the cable routing.
About starting: whenever I work on a hi-comp bike, the first thing I do is replace all the wires in the starting circuit with stranded 4ga battery cable. You can order premade wires for harleys, but costs less to go to Napa and buy the parts you need. These wires gave the tiny YTZ7S the ability to work on my Pongo (104hp M966 2v) and alllmost be reliable as a daily driver. I did have to put Pongo on the Tender when parked for the night, but this setup certainly made the starter spin easily enough.
Since it's mentioned here and elsewhere in this thread ... the YTZ7S *is* ok to use for street riding. BUT it's not for someone who must have 100% reliability -- and it MUST be on a battery tender 24/7. While Pongo never stranded me, there was a time or 2 when I wondered if I'd be able to start the bike and make it home! The YTZ7S is very robust for 8 months to a year and then will start to loose a little oomph.
I used 2 ytz7s batteries in parallel on my MH900e and that setup is exceptionally reliable. The MH comes from Ducati with a pair of very weak batteries. The ecu drains them too quickly ... and they get tired easily. Without extreme care, the batteries simply die in a year to 18 months. When mine died, I install a pair of the ytz7s batteries. They're smaller than the OEM battery, so I used cardboard to take up the slack. With the pair of ytz7s's, the MH became very reliable. Even with its wimpy cable from the solenoid to the starter, the engine would excitedly turn over and come to life.
Well, that's my
Chris
900SSie Battery Options?
Linear Mode
