Can you safely load test a motorcycle battery? I have a manual 100 amp load tester (I think its 100 amp). It works well on car batteries. I'm wandering if its too much for a motorcycle battery. Seems like it would yank a lot of juice from it. Good car batteries will drop to about 11.5v and maintain that under load. Will a motorcycle battery do the same? Or would a 100 amp load cause it to drop lower. Anyway is this safe?

 

It is safe to do that for several seconds. If you keep 100A of load for more than a minute the battery will overheat (you are dissipating 1200W of power, similar to the heat generated by a kitchen range burner).
In reality during cranking the load on the battery can reach several hundred amperes (usually 2 to 3 hundred on motorcycles)

How much the battery voltage will drop under load depends on the state of health and the parameters of the specific battery.
In any case, if the battery is fully charged and you apply 100A of load the voltage shouldn’t drop below 9.5 V. If it does then you most likely need a new battery.

Good luck!

 

Of course you can, load to half the cold cranking amps of the battery for no more than 15 seconds, should not drop below 9.6 volts. The CCA rating should be on the battery info label. Regardless, the only HD battery close to 200 CCA's that I'm aware of is the V-Rod at 205, ( unless you are working on something vintage ).