Finally Upgraded to my HO alternator

[Legacy777]

Well after the big move and all the hassles, and finally having time and the parts I installed everything last night. I had to add extensions to the main leads. They were two 10 gauge wires, I put them in the connectors and soldered everything. I think I toasted the insulation on the some of the wires with the torch.....but I think it's fine. So I got that done, had to extend and re-wire the sense & light wires. After several hours I got everything in, wired up, and re-wrapped in wire loom.

Results. The stereo does sound better, louder, engine seems to idle/run smoother. There's possibly a tad more power in the mid range. However I still get some light dimming when at idle. Whether that's because the lights are brighter, or what.....I'm not sure. I do have an under drive pulley, and did have some very little dimming before. I would have thought the higher output alternator would have gotten rid of that. I'll probably go get everything tested to see what sort of amps it's putting out at idle.

I also may look into swapping over to a standard sized lightweight pulley instead. We'll see.


Whether I'd do it again......jury is still out yet, it was more money and a hell of a lot more work.

On a side note, does anyone know of rubber spray "paint" type stuff. The extra pos. connector on my battery is bare, and isn't very nice when arcing tools off of it.

[vrg3]

Cool!

They were two 10 gauge wires, I put them in the connectors and soldered everything.

Is 10 gauge heavy enough? I'd use 8 gauge at least considering that you could have close to 100 amps going through it...

I think I toasted the insulation on the some of the wires with the torch.....but I think it's fine.

As long as you make sure you don't get arcing or shorts. As a side note, you're usually better off using a soldering iron or soldering gun rather than a torch when doing electrical soldering, for this reason.

However I still get some light dimming when at idle. Whether that's because the lights are brighter, or what.....I'm not sure. I do have an under drive pulley, and did have some very little dimming before. I would have thought the higher output alternator would have gotten rid of that. I'll probably go get everything tested to see what sort of amps it's putting out at idle.

Most high-output alternators actually have lower output than OEM at low engine speeds; that's just part of how they work. You get more current when it's turning fast but less when it's turning slow.

I also may look into swapping over to a standard sized lightweight pulley instead. We'll see.

That's probably a good idea.

On a side note, does anyone know of rubber spray "paint" type stuff. The extra pos. connector on my battery is bare, and isn't very nice when arcing tools off of it.

Maybe you could use Plasti-Dip and a paintbrush or something?

[magicmike]

Let me see if I understand this. There was not a bolt for you to attach the output to? You say there was a plug with 2 ten gauge wires for the output? I'm assuming these are the ign and sense wires not the output and you just worded it a bit weird. If you didn't at leaste run a brand new 4 awg to the battery you probabaly are not getting the full effect. Also you should ground the engine to the chassis with a new 4 awg.

Mike

[vrg3]

If you didn't at leaste run a brand new 4 awg to the battery you probabaly are not getting the full effect. Also you should ground the engine to the chassis with a new 4 awg.

I think 4 gauge should be plenty, and even 8 gauge should be okay... But shouldn't he run the new grounding strap from the engine (ideally you'd clean up the area around the alternator mounting bolt and use that) to the battery's negative terminal? Most of the current is going to be charging the battery, and the stock battery ground strap is pretty small.

[Legacy777]

The 10 gauge I used was fausgate power wire

I'll have to look for that plasti-dip stuff, thanks.

Mike,

No everything was there to attach to, the main output post on the alternator was moved, so the stock lead was too short. I extended it.

Also this alternator was a two wire, sense & light only, it didn't have an ign lead like the stock unit.

I have had additional power leads & grounding leads on my car for a couple years now. I have a 6 gauge wire going directly from the alternator output lead to the pos. lead of the battery. I also have the same 6 gauge wiring going to the chassis ground point, as well as the starter ground point. I would assume the wiring I have in place is more then sufficient to handle everything.

I will probably look at doing a single point ground mod of some sorts, but I'll be measuring resistance values to look for spots where the ground points could be improved.

[magicmike]

I'm looking at it soley from a car stereo point of view. What ever you have now would be fine for the car alone, which was probably drawing like 80 amps max. All I mean is that if it were me, I'd do a new 4awg power to the battery and make a 4awg ground strap for the motor. Idealy you could attatch the ground for the battery (also 4awg) to the same point on the chassis as you put the ground strap. As a side note, on larger sized systems I seen seen better results by also running a 4 awg ground to the back of the car as well. This is all assuming that your stereo system is the reson for the alt upgrade. If you doubt your system is drawing more than 50-80 amps then I'd just leave it all alone.

Mike

[Legacy777]

Max theoretical draw by amps is like 70 amps, however I'm not maxing out my amps, so the draw is going to be less. For my setup, I'm satisfied with the wiring size.

I upgraded to the HO alternator for a couple reasons, stereo, accessory lights, and because I just wanted one

[Brat4by4]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... gory=38636

This is a great deal. Well made, custom fit.

Your capacitor should take care of any light dimming... unless you are bumping really hard or fast at idle, in that case all you can do is put another capacitor inline to try and handle the hits. Otherwise that is to be expected. You listen to more of a techno/trance music, right? I'm in to more smooth deep hitting music myself, thus the 15" Kicker in the brat .

[vrg3]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... gory=38636

This is a great deal. Well made, custom fit.

But... circle grounds are bad. They allow small potential differences to add up.

[Legacy777]

Your capacitor should take care of any light dimming... unless you are bumping really hard or fast at idle, in that case all you can do is put another capacitor inline to try and handle the hits. Otherwise that is to be expected. You listen to more of a techno/trance music, right? I'm in to more smooth deep hitting music myself, thus the 15" Kicker in the brat .

I don't really have any dimming in reference to bass hits, or so I haven't noticed any. Even with the old alternator I didn't have any, and I'm pretty sure that's because I setup my system well, and am not over-driving my amps. I think the 1 farad cap should be more then acceptable. Yeah I'm more into trance that type of stuff. I have found that I have turned down the adjustable gain for my sub amp quite a bit since installing the alternator. Just goes to show how much more power the amps can produce when they have good supply power.


vrg3, what do you mean by circle grounds cause small potential to build up, and what exactly are circle grounds? Where you chain ground points together, rather then taking all of the ground points back to a single source point?

[vrg3]

vrg3, what do you mean by circle grounds cause small potential to build up, and what exactly are circle grounds? Where you chain ground points together, rather then taking all of the ground points back to a single source point?

Right... To use our cars as an example, a circle ground would be like if you ran a wire from the negative battery terminal to the strut tower, a wire from the strut tower to the intake manifold, a wire from the intake manifold to the other strut tower, a wire from the other strut tower to a grounding point on the chassis, and a wire from that grounding point on the chassis back to the negative battery terminal.

The issue is that between each of those points, you can have small voltage differences, and since voltage differences add up when they're in series, you (in theory) don't really end up with the uniform ground reference potential that the "grounding mod" is meant to give you.

Star-pattern grounds are preferable, where you choose a point as your central ground (a point on the engine block would probably be best) and run grounding wires from there to all the other grounding points. That way the longest path from one grounding point to another is two wires.

In practice, it's easiest to combine the two, since it's awkward getting a lot of wires onto a grounding lug on the block, so you could run one strap from the block to the negative battery terminal and then a bunch of wires from the negative battery terminal to other grounding points.

[Legacy777]

cool,

I will have to look into the star pattern method when I get some time.

Thanks for the explanation.

As an update, the car does really idle better, and have better pickup. Granted I did reset the ECU, but the car does run much better then it did. I do have different gas in there, shell........but we'll see how it goes over a few weeks.