Hi again Luke.
I'm no guru, and happily stand to be corrected on this, but until that time...
Volts, amps, watts (power) & CCA...
Think of your battery as a bucket of water... the amount of water in there is the 'Amp hours'
Volts - poke a small horizontal hole in the bottom of the bucket... how far the water squirts is your voltage..
Amps - would be the diameter of that hole... a thicker stream would be able to supply more power, but obviously the bucket / battery would deplete faster.
CCA... is basically a darn big hole (fist sized) in your bucket, and whilst you'll get a lot of 'power' instantaneously, it won't last for long, and furthermore your battery will drain in a very short time. CCA will be determined by the chemical make up / size of the battery, connectors....
'Power' is basically the force of the stream of water, in other words Volts x Amps. (= watts) eg, a 60W headlamp will use 5A @ 12V. Considering the 'typical' loads you might have on your CB550..
60W Headlamp+
5W Tail lamp+
21W Brake lamp+
34W indicators
------
120Watts
...telling you that with these 'normal' night loads the current drain would be 10Amps on your 12V battery. Now, your alternator will cope whilst running, but you may be in stop-start traffic, and thus the battery has to be able to take the strain.
Bottom line, Honda fit a 14Ah battery for a darn good reason, and whilst you might be able to go down from here a bit, too far & you'll be giving yourself starting problems due basic (unseen) current drain with the spark plug coils & alternator field coils which also consume 2-3 Amps.
... ie if your battery depletes too far you'll have starting problems .... so carry a set of jump leads!
I mess about (a bit) with RC Helicopters; and the battery technology here is amazing. If you were after a compact / powerful battery then a LiPo would be the way to go, a 5000mA (=5Ah) / 11.1V pack with a 20C rating / 40C burst rating. The 20C implies a 20x the quoted amp rating for discharge (ie 100A (plenty)) and the 40C Burst rating implies 40x5A for 'burst' currents... ie 200A for the electric start. (OK). But now Luke you're getting into to very high Tec / expensive batteries, that require careful monitoring / charging.... all the things a 40yr old Honda just doesn't have. (please don't even think about 'trying' one of these battery packs - you may end up with the bike on fire)
Looking at your 3.7V / 5000mA cells on ebay...., well, 3 of them in series (connected end-end) would give a 11.1v battery, rated at 5A. (looking at it I'd have my doubts though!) And then if you made an identical pack, and connected the two in parallel (ie + to +, and the - to - ) you'd now have an 11.1V battery capable of supplying 10Amps. But, what I can't tell is whether they would be compatible / safe with the Honda '70s charging system.... though I'd doubt it very much. What I can tell you is they would not be able to supply a 200A drain to crank the starter in the numbers / costs you'd be considering...
Trying to be polite... you can't buck the system. If auto manufactures could easily fit small batteries they wouldn't be wasting time with bulky / heavy ones. There is a limit, bound by chemistry & dimensions how small you can go, and it seems you might just be trying to push that!
As I wrap up, please, as I say, don't take me as any guru, and please do be careful as batteries are not all the same, and can be very dangerous. (LiPos especially). Treat 'em with respect.
And try these guys... Phil & Pete, very helpful & can offer motorcycle compatible LiPos (ie with charging components built in).... though at your size? (I honestly wouldn't go 'lower than 10Ah & 200 CCA - tho' Yoshi823 on this forum runs a 5Ah battery on his bike (see thread below). Anyways.. get in touch Phil & Pete - knowledgeable & keen to help.
http://www.carrotcycles.co.uk/index.php?_a=category&cat_id=2....and check out this thread on the forum,
http://www.sohc.co.uk/index.php?topic=5617.msg27816#msg27816Cheers,
Simon.