For the last 23 years, my alternator (or as we say in MA, altnatedah) was my stock type unit converted over to a 70 amp? unit by me, with an upgrade kit from JC Whitney. Yes I still have the box. Yes you can see a picture of it.
Not sure why, but for some reason, I hadn't given my alternator output much thought. It worked before, it'll work again. I just took it apart, chemically stripped the paint off the case and fan, tediously wire wheeled all the places I couldn't get with the stripper, made sure all internal parts were in good working order, ordered a can of Eastwood's Aluma-Blast, waited for it to show up, painted it, watched it dry, bought an under drive pulley for it, machined a a custom spacer to bring the fan blades closer to the case, greased the bearing, put it all back together, clocked it wrong, re-clocked it, mounted it to the car, ran the charge wire, plugged it in, adjusted all the spacers and brackets for proper belt alignment, ran the belt, tightened it up and fired up the car.
I mean look at the can - that might as well be my alternator. Minus the black fan of course (mine is color matched to the case). And the pulley is different. But yeah, same exact thing -
However, after firing up the car, it seems like my pretty altnatedah may not be in a good place. I'm only getting 12.6V at the battery with the car running, with only the fuel pump and ignition on. Flip the fan on and forget it.... After confirming all the right connections were being made, I'm thinking it just may not have enough juice to do what I need.
Now that I've replaced my single 16" fan with new dual 13" fans, AND swapped my old Mallory 140 for a bigger fuel pump, AND added in electric exhaust cutouts, the old unit was likely passed it limits. (At some point something bad happened too. I don't know what, but it was bad and the regulator gave up its ghost. Pretty sure I saw an output of 36 volts on the meter at one point)
Now with two reasons to look, I needed to do something. It sure would be nice to finally have a reliable enough charging system where I wouldn't have to be constantly looking at the volts gauge wondering if whatever I was running was too much on the system. This should solve that problem -
Kinda looks photoshoped in that picture. Not sure why.
With concession to the street, I opted for a non-race type alternator. No mini case, no having to rev to switch it on etc... Just something simple that would generate some power at idle and deal well with idling slowly around town.
I wanted to go nuts with amps, but I also wanted to make sure it would fit directly into the spot I created for the old one. This was a good mix between the two. Thank goodness it fits too, because belt alignment is a royal PITA if your the type of person who doesn't like the look of a bunch flat washers taking up space (and just to be clear, I'm not the type of person who likes the look of a bunch flat washers taking up space.)
Except for the extremely bright aluminum case, and the charging post being 5/16 instead of 1/4, it looks just like my old one on the Aluma -Blast can. (Minus of course, again, the black fan. Yeah, and the pulley. Cant forget the pulley. And the Powermaster sticker)
Here's the funny thing - funny like I'm going to throw tools kinda funny. Now I'm only getting 13.6V at the battery when running with pump and ignition on. Flip on one fan you're still above 12, but flip on both fans? Forget about it. 11.xV as measured at the battery terminals.
@#$&*)Ben Franklin%* #&piece of&$&* &%(%^&#$@#^&%$& ^#$^.
In all seriousness, here is why this is really funny.
Whats so funny about that you ask? That is a picture of the wire that solved my charging problem, (2ga on the right), compared to the wire I thought would get it done. (10ga on the left) Comical, right? I now take back all those bad things I said about Benny Franklin. He was a good guy.
I should probably thank Powermaster too for printing this and putting it some place very prominent -
My battery is 21 wire feet away from my alternator. 21 feet! Friggin 10ga. lol.
So let this be a lesson to ya. But don't look to me to tell you what it is. You find the lesson in here. Its there somewhere. Volts, amperage, resistance over distance etc....
To wrap up this post, the routing of that 2GA was not going to be one of under the intake like the old charge wire. But where does one hide such a ridiculously sized wire? If I can get it into the frame, great - but near the altnatedah area of the frame, the steering box owns all the real estate. And he ain't sellin!
Up and over the cross member, under the engine mount and back down the cross member would get me to a place with enough room to make a hole...if I could actually get a drill in there. But I really don't feel like taking the header off. Plus its still pretty exposed to a lot of heat in that area.
I took a selfie when I came to the realization drilling my cross member was the only way out of this. You remember, the one the I painted a bazillion times?
There really was no other way. It was the quickest way into the frame, and I could actually get a good angle on it with the hole saw.
It came out alright. Thank goodness for tape and sharp hole saw teeth. Here is a finished shot with the wire conduit removed and me practicing safe wiring etiquette. (The smaller wire is the energizer)
and from the top side, the conduit hides it well.
I should have gotten a nice picture of the meter reading 14.6V at the battery at idle. I'll let your imagination take that one.
I didn't load test it yet, but I'm confident it will pass I'll do that next week.