What does everyone use for battery cables?  I know most teams probably use normal 4 or 6 gauge battery cable. I know it works & is relatively cheap. Personally I prefer stereo cable. Presently using 6 gauge. However there is 8 gauge stereo cable that will handle over 40 amps long term & 80 + short term. That is what I will use when I rewire. Stereo cable is very flexible & of course smaller is lighter. Biggest drawback, it's expensive. If you ever use stereo cable you probably won't go back to battery cable.

Most teams use battery cable or preferably welding cable. 6 guage is rather small for optimum efficiency, go to at least 2 guage and preferaby bigger. Aaron

I agree, we should each use whatever size cable & whatever type we want. I don't like to just play things safe. I like to experiment. If manufacturer tells me their 8 ga. cable will carry over 40 amp for prolonged periods why use anything else? I'd call that optimum efficiency.

Actually, with wire, bigger is more efficient. The rating you are using is the minimum wire that is rated to work. There is no maximum, but at some point you have to stop going bigger. Welding cable is good because it has lots of very small strands in it instead of a handfull of larger strands. This style of wire is also more efficient. Minimun acceptable efficiency is what you are rating off of (the 8 guage carring 40 amps), not optimum. Aaron

At Willamette we use mostly 4 gauge welding or stereo wire. Any smaller and we seem to not be as efficient and the wires are sometimes a little warm after the race. We can not tell any difference if we go larger than 4 gauge but we don't have any fancy metering systems to actually measure how much power we are using to shove electricity through the wires. We used to use 1 or 2 gauge for several year but then one of our 'dads' who was local electrical engineer told us that with some calculations he thought that any bigger than 4 gauge was an overall efficiency loss as far as resistance loss to weight loss at less than 80 amps. Don't know the 'real' answer but just my 2 cents worth. Mike

Isn't it amazing what a person can learn when we share ideas. I still like stereo cable.

Stereo cable is very close in characteristics to welding cable. It does have one big advantace, it looks cooler. I remember one of the cars having it a few years ago. If I remember correctly, it was about 0000 in size. The stuff was huge, bigger than your thumb.

I use #4 (multi strand) cable that I buy at Lowe's. It weighs about half what welding cable weighs, costs a lot less than stereo cable, and I haven't noticed any appreciable difference in performance.

I think you shouldn't use this wire as a battery cable..Because Every type of wire is manufacture according to its use. It means that wire should be used according capacity also. plastic hats | wire plastic