Beefy L-Body Alternator Upgrade

[horizon_87_withneons]

after reading about the swap in multiple locations Ive come to the conclusion that the bracket and wiring will be my issue. from what im reading i need a few specific cars. none of which pop up often in my local yards. im sure I can source the alternator, however im wanting to go at least with 100+amp. i have a lot of onboard accessories. what vehicles could I source that from that are more common? (caravan, stratus, etc.)

in the event I locate I need a bracket to fit my horizon. my last issue is wiring. my question being, what exactly is IN that wire harness that's so important? im not afraid to make my own harness or modify mine. if the only difference is that charge wire then that's cool cause im doing the "big 3" upgrade when I overhaul the sound system. how does this 100+ amp work with the regulator and/or stator/signal wires?

thanks everyone

[Dr. Johny Dodge]

I believe the heavy ground cable running from the alternator to the battery is much beefier in non L body cars with the heavy duty nipendenso alternator

[horizon_87_withneons]

So when people refer to it as "negative charge" they literally mean it charges via the negative terminal? Interesting. Ive Never worked with a charge system like that. But either way if the diameter of that wire is the only difference than I am golden because I wont need that wire anyway. Ill be upgrading that charge feed to better larger wire regardless.

[86Shelby]

Johnny misspoke calling it a ground cable. The electronics on these cars are just your standard 12V positive system. I installed a 90A or 100A nippo alternator on my L-body years ago and found that running a short ground cable from the alternator body to the engine block helped the alternator charge better.

[tryingbe]

http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f4/...-body-how.html

[horizon_87_withneons]

ok so you say the large 6ga.-ish wire coming off my alt which (on my car) Y's off and goes to the block and the - on the battery. is essentially just a ground and is NOT what "charges" the battery?

i completely understand why making this wire larger and cleaning up its connections could make a difference. mines got quite alot of corrosion and is definitely too small

[tryingbe]

Yes, electron technically flows from - charge to + charge.

You need both positive and negative to charge the battery, loop needs to be completed. I overkilled it by using 1/0 welding cables for both my positive and negative wires. I also used the 1/0 welding cables for the starter, all the ground cables, etc.

[Dr. Johny Dodge]

mm yeah , sorry , I should'a said negitive cable .. I was actually thinking a little further along the cable to the splice at the back end of the head cable / fan ground
(lol)

.. and + 1 on that splice getting nasty - they were often bad when the cars were only 3-5 years old
maybe some sort of flux was involved in the fuseing of that splice that never got cleaned out of the wires

I'll add though that I've seen many mentions of doing this swap in an L body , but I'll add that IF your electrical system is in really good condition - and you haven't added any extra load then the original charging system really dosen't need improvement
- unless you want to run it hard and consistantly as a performance vehicle

also a good electrical mod is setting the car up for the old style voltage regulator as the one built into the power module is prone to failure

such that it's a good plan to have it pre installed in case you need it one time to get home

I like to cut the field wires behind the battery - at the car side of the connectors coming off the front of the motor
if you find a pair of two wire connectors , 2 sets of male and female you can use three of the four to make the external old style regulator swap a simple side of the road plug in swap and go
- again

I've seen some screwie diagrams posted for the external reg swap that show some power wire running to the regulator but to install it you simply run both field wires straight to the external regulator and that's all that's needed
dosen't seem to even matter which field wire you run to what terminal on the regulator - just be sure the two field wires coming from the power module dead end to nothing

the last time I got put to the test by the regulator in the power module was in my first turbo z
I'd gone to a buddy's shop to help him with something and when we were leaving I noted my headlamps were kinda dim .. oh oh ..
as he lived just around the corner from him I followed him back to my place - a 15 / 20 min drive
he pulled in the driveway and stoped to the right side so I could get to my spot on the left side of the garage
he ran for the door and swung it up so I could drive the car in
just in time because as it bumped up the couple of inches from the driveway to the garage floor it stalled .. with JUST enough momentim to get the back wheels up and into the garage too

kinda felt like slideing into home to win the world series of
"just makin' it home "

if anything had have been different on the ride home I'd have been pushing the car at some point - to get it off the road or even if only slightly less lucky , into the garage

in the fwd mopar the plug in regulator swap takes the place of keeping a ballist resistor and a set of points in the glovebox
'cause sometime , somewhere .. your gonna wish you had it

sorry to stray but I wanted to say add the regulator back up if you're going to build a charging system anyway .. might as well while you're at it

[horizon_87_withneons]

i wish i could post up pictures. i just finished a custom relay harness today to toggle all of my accesories. this car has been fully swapped to carb. and is running a flamethrower ignition. while running all my accesories im getting a voltage drop at my coil. (and all around really) but only under load. so naturally im assuming the original alt is the culprit. but since i will be having several large draw devices, i figured id take the opportunity to upgrade. (ill have a sub, a small 4ch. amp, led light bar, and a few other misc. things)

but to clear a few things up, im not seeing some of the things you are describing. from my alternator i merely have 4 wires. one large one to the block, the other to the - terminal. then 2 small wires. cant quite see where theyre going, havent traced too far.