Altenator upgrade

[trybe13]

Glad I decided to stop by here this evening. I was going to order that alt later tonight at work. John give me a ring tomorrow; early evening.

[6spd_monte]

Hey James,
I purchased a CS144 from alternatorparts.com and have been very happy with it. My van was originally equipped with the CS130. It took some massaging and coaxing to fit the larger CS144 in place, but with patience it can be a factory-looking installation.

Just my 2 cents.

I'll post pics when I can, but I've been having some computer trouble lately (read: motherboard failure) and all my images are trapped on the hard drive in my desktop. I am currently operating off of my old laptop. So don't hold your breath for the pics, sorry.

[Xephius]

I did the wiring upgrade last summer (Big 3) so that is taken care of.

Can you tell me what upgrade this is referring too?

As some of you know, I have the dash disassembled on my van waiting for new parts. I have had to run some minor errands so I have driven the van around without the gauge cluster in it. (no dash to hold it in place) After about 2 day so of this the car wouldn't start. The battery was dead. So I grabbed the gauge cluster, plugged it in and jump started the car. Since then it has charged and run the van with no problem.

This makes me believe that the alt gauge must be somehow connected to the charging circuit. So if the gauge is not present, the system will not charge. Has anyone else come across this anomaly?

Trybe, my Alternator was installed by the dealer in Cali before I got the van. It has about 10k miles on it by now but is still shiny and clean. I think its a 140amp model. But here are some thoughts on the Alternator and AMPS....

At 12 volts, 12 Watts = 1 Amp. So a 140amp alt can crank out 1680 watts if converted linearly. But you have a 1000 watt amp you say, rubbish I say. Unless your amp has a 70amp (or better, calculated at 14V) fuse it is not consuming that much power. Look at all your amps, then look at the fuses on the back of them, add up all the values and that is the peak usage you will ever have on your system.

So at idle you may have only half that available to you, but you have a battery or two to compensate. Lets look at those. A _crap_ car battery has about 100 Amp hours in it. So, it can run 1 amp for 100 hours or any variation there in. Lets assume the stock 140 produces 50 at idle. You have 2 amps that pull 30 Amp, plus your normal usage of about 30 from lights and crap. That is 90 amps.
90 - 50 from the alt leaves 40amps. So your battery can sustain that for about half an hour before it starts to peter out. You have 2 batteries so you can last twice as long, but still this is in optimal conditions. And again, this is assuming you have both amps running all out using the full 30 amps. But I doubt that would happen as they would get smoking hot, that's just a lot of juice to be consuming.

So here is what I would suggest.
1) Make sure you have a quality Alt that produces the amps it says it does. The Delco is a good one, I am sure the others are too.
2) Do the math on your system, I can help if you like, but if the numbers are not adding up then something is wrong. Find and eliminate said problem.
3) If you sound system does not make the 90% volume you want with 1 watt per speaker, we need to redesign you system. The first watt of power in audio is the most powerful and gets you the most results, after that you are just pouring power on to squeeze out 10% more.

Just as reference, a pair of speakers that are 90db@1W/1M will look like this.
2 Watt = 93db (one watt per speaker)
4 Watts = 96db
8 Watts = 99db
16 Watts = 102db
32 Watts = 105db
64 Watts = 108db
128 Watts = 111db
256 Watts = 114db
512 Watts = 117db
1024 Watts = 120db

So to make your system louder the best thing to do is 1) add more speakers, or 2) get more efficient speakers. Throwing more watts really looses its efficiency quickly. Also keep in mind that almost all audio equipment manufacturers lie, flat out. Deduct about 3db efficiency from any speaker listings you find and look at the fuse to calculate amp output. I build tube amps that are generally about 15-30 watts of output, and I regularly decimate speaker/amp combo's that are quoted at 10X mine. The reason is the math won't lie, and quality components perform. If you like, we can examine your stereo system and probably get more volume and efficiency with less money than you think.

I should stop typing now......

[trybe13]

John the upgrade info is here: http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/for ... 73496&PN=1
I did the upgrade last summer.
I will call you Thursday. I forgot I have band practice tonight and will have no free time until Thursday.
Late.

[PharmAstrocist]

Hmm... I've done the big ONE for sure, welders wire from the H/O to the pos... possibly a big TWO if you count the second battery with 4awg ground in series... very doubtful on the engine chassis.