Alternator Upgrade

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Grinder said:
WOW! This is a great wealth of info!Thank you all! My old battery cable did not have a 10 AWG pigtail grounded to the body.My new one has a little piece comming off of it for this.Should I connect some wire to is and ground it somewhere?If so where?
Click to expand...

I don't want to overstate the obvious, but just to be sure there isn't a disaster, this is the negative cable we're talking about. :toothy10: Hope it fixes your problem.
 
Grinder, I have to say that everyone is pointing you in the right direction. Having done some of the "other" fixes myself and running into some issues, I found myself going back to correct the age issues because the new accessories didn't behave well.
For example:
I added a stereo, amp, tach and an electric cooling fan, so I swapped to a 90A alternator, only to have my stereo shut off when I had the lights, A/C and wipers on....the connections/wires had so much resistance that the power inside the firewall would drop below 12v. So back to cleaning up the connections I went..time consuming and tedious BUT well worth it. I didn't start a fire in my car but I did have to replace a connector in the fuse block (melted)

Moral of the story...get the system working the way it was designed, THEN start the upgrades.
 
The electrical engineering on our American cars in the 70's and beyond wasn't that great. The Japanese and other countries were using relays back then to eliminate excessive current draw. It doesn't make sense to push 20 - 30 amps thru a #14/16 gauge wire (10 feet or more) that reaches from the battery source thru a control switch and on to the item. Same thing as using Amps guages during those times. Only asking for trouble. Add in the age factor of the vehicle and it makes for potential problems. Relays simply remove the current draw from the control switches and wiring (headlights, heater blower, wipers, etc) and apply the power directly to the item(s) thru a very short, heavy guage wire which will carry the load. Almost all new cars have numerous relays in their electrical systems for this purpose. The only alternative I can see for my old car is to completely re-wire it as opposed to installing relays. I would rather have the relays and take the load off the system.
 
So I'm just wondering (thinking back to the first post in this thread) has anyone ever run a Denso alternator off like a 90 ram charger on a slant, any pics of the mounting, what would be needed to get it to work? From what I have read and if I understand right seeing as how I have already done the Mad Electrical bypass all I would need to do is run the dark blue wire...

wires2.jpg


http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=52620

...from the ballast resistor to the field/ignition/sense terminal on the new alt bypassing the voltage reg because the new style is internally regulated. Right, close?

I want to upgrade the Dart and I may rethink the chevy alt on the 48 and run an alt off a 90ish ram charger on the slant.
 
Yep, That's exactly what I have on my car... picked one up at the local yard to see if it would fit. Something like 91 dodge van with a v-belt pulley on it already. I'll see about getting the pics at lunch. The only mod is to the alternator itself, the mounting tabs on the bottom are too close together so you have to grind about 1/4 inch off of the inside of the back one to get the pulley to line up. You'll also need a belt that is a couple of inches shorter or something to extend the slider bracket on the top.
JR thanks for the heads up on the flanges, I had seen a set a while back but was not in the market yet ( I still may not be ) after the 4-speed swap I'm done for a while. :(
 
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