Controversy vs simple Batt @ alternator upgrade

[94 ranger]

Looking to save $ on adding a 2nd battery to my silverado along with mechman 320 alt.

I really just wanna save cost on batteries not trying spend 300-500$ on yellow top which seem to have failures and xs power to me is not affordable currently .

I have a crescendo 4k and 4 soundqubed hds2.110s , I read a article that adding a second battery can actually cause more issues.

If I ran two simple 12v car batteries "New " a long with mechman 320 and  big 3 would that suffice?

What am I gaining by shelling out 600-800 on dual xs or optimas? Especially when yellow tops have horrible reviews and people claim they're not what they use to be. 

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[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

If you haven't already bought that Mechman look into CES alternators. Should come out alittle cheaper and they make great alternators. For batteries I would look into Dekas group 31 agms. Not sure of your location but Sams club has Energizer AGMs for $180 each.

Two G31 AGMs and a 320 amp alt should do great.

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Unless you wire the crescendo 4k to .5 you don't need anything more than upgraded alt output and a regular agm battery. 

It's actually cheaper to buy a dual alt bracket for $200-300 and get two AD244's from a junkyard for $40 each. Guaranteed 240a at idle and more cold at higher rpms

Depending on the generation of silverado you can buy a dual battery bracket for $40 from the dealership and have dual batts for  ~$300

 

[Dragonsyph]

Those cheaper bats are nice and have decent AH, but does the fact they dont use virgin lead or cant put out very many amps at 1 time like XS power bats mean anything?

Like an XS 3100 is 110AH but says can put out up to 5000amps and they use brand new virgin lead.  Do these cheaper bats like Duracell and Energizer have the same amp outputs and can they charge and discharge as fast as XS?

Im kinda in the same boat as OP,  i got a 370A elite HO and am wondering if i should buy the cheapest bats i can or go with high out put AGMs from XS. 

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Those cheaper bats are nice and have decent AH, but does the fact they dont use virgin lead or cant put out very many amps at 1 time like XS power bats mean anything?

Like an XS 3100 is 110AH but says can put out up to 5000amps and they use brand new virgin lead.  Do these cheaper bats like Duracell and Energizer have the same amp outputs and can they charge and discharge as fast as XS?

Im kinda in the same boat as OP,  i got a 370A elite HO and am wondering if i should buy the cheapest bats i can or go with high out put AGMs from XS. 

5000a at what voltage drop? it's marketing wank. Batteries have fairly high internal resistance. You could get away with 1 bank of caps and a HO alternator because the internal resistance of the caps is much lower.

With a crescendo 4k wired at 1 ohm your current draw isn't going to be even 1/10th of 5000a so it makes no difference. There's basically two classes of "good" batteries. 1) Trusted manufacturers like East Penn who produce duracell and other AGM's 2) Premium manufacturers who offer higher purity lead like Northstar, XS Power, and Enersys. 

The cost/benefit for the premium isn't worth it, you'd be better off buying a bank of supercaps or more East Penn batteries or LTO cells

The cheapest batteries you can get are not the same as trusted manufacturers batteries. Optima is about as low as it gets these days.