[gtofreek]

Most people, it seems to me, way overthink the starter cable thing. The starter is, by far, the biggest electrical draw on the entire system. 200-300 amps, depending on starter type, and load. You only need a cable large enough to carry that current, for the distance it has to travel. For under hood battery applications, 4 gauge is plenty of cable for the starter. 2 gauge is the most you should ever need. If the battery is in the trunk, then I would step it up to 1 gauge. Any cable large enough to operate the starter, will be double the cable you need for charging the battery. Since electricity travels on the outside of the wire core, the more strands of fine wire it has, the better. Welding cable has very fine wire, and lots of it. This is why they don't run solid core wire in cars like they do in houses. The more the voltage of the system, the less wire gauge you need, because the amperage draw drops accordingly. 6 volt systems need even heavier battery cable because the voltage is simply not there to push the amperage through, so they need as much wire strands as they can get.

Standard car battery cable is all anyone should ever need, whether it be 4 gauge, 2 gauge, 000 gauge. Anymore than than your system needs is a waste. After doing starting and charging systems for 11 years[and 10's of thousands of cars fixed] I am convinced that 1 gauge is the heaviest cable anyone would ever need to start their Pontiacs. Anymore than that is a waste.