hey guys. for those of you that are thinking about, or are eventually gonna do the big 3 or an alternator upgrade im currently referring to these 3 posts. im about to do it in a few minutes but i did have a few questions for the experts befrore hand.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...&highlight=big
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...&highlight=big
https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...&postcount=272

those sources are some GREAT reads. so my questions are pretty small and simple i suppose.


-ill be doin zero gauge wire that i have purchased on ebay a few weeks ago. thing is, i only have like 10 feet total of the wire. is that enough? or should i wait and order some more?

-i originally was gonna do an ANL fuse with fuse holder from the alternator to the battery but needed to use the ANL fuse holder for my amp power line cause my system melted the cheap one i had on there. is an ANL fuse from the alternator to the battery important? have you guys that have done this use a fuse from the alt to the battery?

-what is the biggest thing that some of you have ran into besides that bottom bolt for the alternator?


i swear this site has saved me so much money in labor costs its ridiculous lol. im attempting to do this by myself so im hoping for some good feedback.

thanks in advance. trying to get all my projects done before the car shows this month (blox and wekfest)

 

What kind of wire do you have? Cheap wire is a nice fuse in your system. It can provide more resistance than it helps. There's no sense in having a hi output alt if your wire can't transfer the current. I don't think 10 feet would be enough (on my 2.3, I believe I used like 12-15' of wire, but I probably could have used less) and if that's the case, you may as well order some good wire to complete the whole setup.

 

i got some of this stuff.


had some good reviews on amazon so i figured id go with it. think id be okay?.

 

It looks kinda small for car audio 1/0, but will probably be ok. That said, if you need more (to wire up the rest of your system or whatever) I would suggest a company like Knukonceptz or someone like that.

 

im runnin 4 gauge right now for my sub amp. i plan to do zero gauge in the near future. and then the inside speaker amp im running a small 8 gauge.

what was the biggest issue that you ran into when you did your install

 

Biggest issue I ran into was having to modify the fuse box to fit a bigger connector ring. I only did 4 gauge, but I actually ordered a slimmer profile ring to save some trouble.

 

i plan on shaving down the terminals to fit as one of the threads had it.

chris how hard were the bolts to take out. im afraid of snappin em and not getting the alternator out at all.

 

I dunno, maybe fitting 1/0 into the fuse block, but even that wasn't that hard. A bench grinder does wonders for narrowing up ring terminals. It's been so long since I've done it that I hardly remember doing it. It was extremely easy, all things told. Getting almost 50 feet from the front battery to the trunk was much more difficult (4 runs of 1/0 in the side sills is a tight squeeze).

 

Mine were no problem, but I had my alt replaced a few years before I replaced the cabling. Still shouldn't be that bad. The ones in the fuse box were cake

 

Hit the bolts with some PB Blaster the day/night before you try and pull them if you're that worried about 'em. Just give that stuff some time to work it's magic, and they'll almost certainly come right out.

 

pb blaster?...never used that before. is that like wd40? can i get that at like autozone or wherever?

 

Yeah, you should be able to get it there. It's similar, but better.

 

If you can't find that, liquid wrench penetrating works too

 

ill go grab some. havent gotten my extra wiring in yet so i havent gotten a chance to do it. im pretty excited to see the difference. from my understanding our stock amperage is 80 or something like right? curious to see 150

 

okay so i FINALLY got all the wire for the install. im sure yall are thinkin "dude i thought you did it already". well i wanted to make sure i had enough wire and it turns out i didnt so i ordered more and i just got it in.

anyway i was gonna try to do this before i went to work so i pulled up the three threads in the op. but what i usually do is try to find some supplement tuts just incase and then i ran into this thread

https://acurazine.com/forums/audio-video-electronics-navigation-22/big-3-upgrade-failed-help-833383/

now theres hundreds and hundreds of tuts online and even some good pictures right here at acurazine. some of which dont even run wire to the fuse holder. but THIS FREAKED ME OUT. the last thing i want is my car to blow up (which i realize it wont lol.) or at the least catch on fire. sucks cause the OP in that thread never responded with the results of all the advice. and i hate to be the test dummy hahah..so instead....im going to describe to you how i THINK im supposed to do this according to the tuts and pics ive seen


1. disconnect the negative side of battery
2. disconnect the positive side of battery (then take out the batter completely)
3. uninstall stock alternator (obviously after the radiator fan, and then loosening the tension to get the belt off the alt)

NOW HERES WHERE IM KINDA CONFUSED. well not confused rather have gotten mixed answers on. so im using zero gauge wire for this whole thing. i know the connection points are alt ground to chasis, chasis to negative post, negative post to fuse, alt + to + post with inline fuse in that positive wire (i hope im right). but on the stock alternator theres this plug thingy (green plug?) that connects to the negative wire (im assuming by solder?) going into the fuse box. do i need to cut the old wire off and then solder the zero gauge wire into that plug? i hope you guys know what im talking about. apologies if i didnt word it very well.

in this post thread, a bit further down with the pictures, there is a wire that is cut which im assuming is where that plug was, but there arent any pictures after that to show where that cut wire goes which is why im kinda confused.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...&postcount=272

hoping one of yall can shed light on the subject. wanna make sure i do this right

 

The wire that I cut in that post is the alt+ to fuse box. Then I removed the wire going from the fuse box to the battery + terminal, and replaced it with the red one. If you're simply adding wire to the factory stuff, you do not need to cut the wire off of the alt post, and you simply add a 1/0 wire between the alt positive post and the battery positive post (fuse here, if you want). Then it's negative battery terminal to chassis and negative battery terminal to engine (at least that's what I did).

 

ahhh okay. gotcha. will keep that in mind. currently ive already mapped out where to hide all the wire. didnt realize 0 was so big lol..ive also been grinding down the terminal rings to fit the fuse box.

ill post some pics when i a few hours to do the install...prolly later on this week...so that i can show you guys exactly what i did just in case i did something wrong

 

Yeah if memory servers, I ran 1 wire from the alt to the fuse box, and then another from the fuse box, around the engine bay to the battery

 

i think the only thing im (and if im guessing correctly was one of the guys problem in that one thread i posted...the failed one) worried about is grinding down the terms properly so the sides dont touch anything, and making sure i connect everything where they should be.

chris so lemme see if i got this right. you ran wire from alt to the fuse box (which wire was it + or -?) and then fuse box to battery?...so you only have one wire coming out of the alt?..

im quickly gonna assume theres several ways of hookin this up

 

Yes there are, but for the big 3, I only really ran 2 wires if I recall correctly for the positive. One out of the alt, and one out of the bat, and connecting to the 2 fuse box terminals. As far as I remember our terminals in the fuse box are surrounded by plastic so you shouldn't touch anything if you get them narrow enough to fit right. I had a ground kit that I did separate, but I did ground the alt to it's stock location right on the chassis in front, nothing to the fuse box with regards to ground