So you want to do the 3G alternator upgrade README

[sly]

If you add nothing to your car (subs, e-fan, etc) it would work, but I know people. "I have a good alternator now. Let's put the banging system in!" Then they're out cruising and crank it up just a little more than usual and boom... AMP light comes on and the battery gets drained in short order as everything goes dim.

or so goes the scenario in my head. I like to avoid that and upgrade properly. Of course if you use a 95A 3G instead of the 130A... then you'd probably be ok, but you have the problem of that harness melting due to the quick connect issue just like on the 2G alternator. Though the risk is reduced, it's not eliminated. Installing a proper charge cable eliminates that risk.

[DerekTheGreat]

I thought I came across 3G kit somewhere that instructed to do exactly that with the stock 2G charge cables. Of course I don't recall where so I might be imagining things. Those instructions (real or imagined) are why I mentioned possibly doing it that way when we talked about the 3G alternator upgrade. I didn't put much thought into it but I figured, since the stock wire from a 3G car looked to be 4 gauge, that there was no point in trying to use those stock charge cables.

What these guys are saying makes much more sense than the instructions that said to use the stock charge cables like that.

My charge cable from the Alt to the megafuse is from a 3G Taurtus. Then a short length of 4 gauge wire I bought on Ebay from the megafuse to the solenoid. I haven't had any trouble with this setup and it's much better than the unnecessary POS 0 gauge BS that I started out with that burned itself to pieces over time (bad connections).

Yeah, that's what I read too so I thought it would be ok. The Continental's charge wire is the same gauge fat black wire with a red stripe that you stripped off that Exploader back when we were investigating GT40 intake options. The only difference is that it's longer, has eyelet connectors at both ends (compared to the square 90 degree ones the 'Sploader has) and has fusible links at the end going to the starter solenoid.

I'm trying to learn but ingrained methods die hard so bear with me here and if I'm wrong please correct my stupidity but here's what's floating in my head:
- All of the 3G 130 amp alternator cars I've seen have that same black wire with the red stripe. This wire seemed to handle the output of that alternator just fine as the fuse/fusible links are not blown. It should work just fine with my stock crap, right?
- Car now has upgraded JBL system with 5 channel amp, speakers and subwoofer. I can see the lights dimming and stuff as it stands now.
- I like Mr. Black&Red as he looks factory, especially right at the solenoid & alternator.
- I would be adding this wire in conjunction with the other stock ones. Not so electrical savvy me thinks of electrical current as flowing water. Doesn't it like to follow the path of least resistance? Won't more current just flow through the fat wire without overloading the thinner ones during high load instances? A fuse is technically a precise resistance element that blows when more current than it's rated for passes through it, right? So wouldn't that resistance just encourage the excess current to go through the fat wire instead?

Thank you for the advice fellas, I appreciate it.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

I would be adding this wire in conjunction with the other stock ones. Not so electrical savvy me thinks of electrical current as flowing water. Doesn't it like to follow the path of least resistance? Won't more current just flow through the fat wire without overloading the thinner ones during high load instances? A fuse is technically a precise resistance element that blows when more current than it's rated for passes through it, right? So wouldn't that resistance just encourage the excess current to go through the fat wire instead?

Why do you wanna reuse the factory harness so badly? If the factory 3G black/red cable handled the 130-amp alt in the donor car why do you think it will be insufficient for yours and wanna "help" it with the factory 2G harness? Leave the factory 2G harness disconnected from the alternator, but do keep it hooked up to the starter contactor/relay on the other side - some cars have main power feeds for the body and what not branching off that mess somewhere along the way, so use the thing for those purposes only. Feed the black/red cable to either the battery or the starter contactor/relay, whatever you prefer. I like feeding the alt current straight into the battery, and then hooking up all the add-on power hogs straight to the battery also - this way the factory wiring handles all the factory equipment, and the add-ons pull directly from the big power source as needed.

[gadget73]

I'd use the charge cable from a factory 3g car without any help from the stock wiring. It will do just ducky.


Trying to fuse 2 paths at once is very difficult, and pretty near impossible to do accurately. You really don't want multiple paths with a circuit interrupt device. You want one fuse to pop in the event of an overload, and you want it to completely isolate power. Feeding from multiple places is just asking for headaches.

[DerekTheGreat]

I just wanted to be sure the Continental's charge wire would work peachy. It's not that I want to keep the 2G wires its just like you said, maybe the feed something else and I don't want to leave dead wires in the car. I was only going to use them since they are there but not by themselves.

Thanks for the help fellas!

[DerekTheGreat]

It's all wrapped up and rolling along. Buut, 94-9? Mustang alternators won't work unless you drill out the bottom bracket to allow the stock bolt to pass through.. I ended up buying a 1994 3.0 Windstar alternator. Lights still twitch when the sub hits, is that normal? How does a dude get rid of that?

[His Royal Ghostliness]

It's all wrapped up and rolling along. Buut, 94-9? Mustang alternators won't work unless you drill out the bottom bracket to allow the stock bolt to pass through.. I ended up buying a 1994 3.0 Windstar alternator. Lights still twitch when the sub hits, is that normal? How does a dude get rid of that?

You need a capacitor (cap for short) for your subs. No idea how big, i don't play with car audio systems.

On the alts, there are the Taurus ones too, 3.8 got the large frame with 8" BCD and the 3.0 uses the small-frame 7-1/4" BCD like Mustangs but cheaper.

[gadget73]

A farad ought to do it. More is better, and put it in the trunk as close to the amp as possible. When you hook it up, I would charge it through a lamp rather than just hooking the wire to it. It'll spark pretty big otherwise. Headlamps work, or tail lamp bulbs if you've got some time. Just put it between the + wire and the + terminal on the cap. When the lamp goes out, pull it out and hook the wire in where it goes.

[sly]

how big is your amp? My 760W Peak amp barely manages to tweak the lights at all. But yeah... If you're running less than 1500W, a 1 farad cap should do it. If you get something bigger (and sometimes the 1.5 and even 3 farad caps are cheaper without being cheap) it just gives the cap more head room.

How to on the hook up with pretty visual aids: http://knowledge.sonicelectronix.com...r-in-your-car/

Also, if you haven't beefed up the body ground (the wire from the negative battery terminal to the body - radiator upper support), doing that alone might fix it. replace that skinny wire with some 4 gauge, or just add a 4 gauge wire to that lug. Either way... more ground to the body helps loads with dat bass.

[IPreferDIY]

+1 for beefing up the body ground. All of the various grounds in your car depend on that one ground connection.

Be sure to watch the video in the comments section of that Sonic Electronix page. They say they generally don't like caps, and they show a few that have been cut open so you can see the difference between a cheap one and a good one.

I would think a 130 amp alternator would be fine for most people's needs. I have two 4-channel amps for four pairs of full range speakers, two mono amps for a dual sub box, and two bass tubes with amps built in. I currently have 10 separate power lines that are only 10 gauge (I'll probably add more to avoid splitting a few), and I use fuses that are 5A less than recommended for the amplifiers (except for the bass tubes, which are only 7.5A each). I've never had a problem with blown fuses or flickering lights. (The power draw probably contributed to misfire issues and blown headlights after my spark plugs wore out, but that's another issue.)

Notably, I use very little, if any, gain on my amplifiers. I have two AudioControl Matrix units, each of which expands two channels to six channels and also acts as a line driver. (One of the Matrix units gets a signal from an AudioControl Epicenter, which "fills in" the bass rather than boosting it. I also have two AudioControl DQS equalizers, which also have line driver capability.) You want to feed a strong signal to the amps since you get more noise from adding a lot of boost to a weak signal. I'm not sure to what extent the gain setting affects the amp's power draw, but it might be something to consider.

I would also think that a headlight relay harness would help with a flickering light problem.

BTW, do you need a battery upgrade when you do the 3G upgrade?

[gadget73]

I need to add one. My car has never had a battery to body ground. Might be why the interior voltage is a bit low.

[IPreferDIY]

+1 for beefing up the body ground. All of the various grounds in your car depend on that one ground connection. ...

I just realized I overstated that. The negative battery cable obviously goes somewhere, so there's a ground point somewhere. But with all kinds of stuff using the body as a ground, you want to beef up the body ground pathway.

[DerekTheGreat]

Thanks fellas!

The amp is a JBL GTO-5EZ, but since the box is too small for the sub I've got the gain at about 75%. I did notice that the sub hits harder with the new alternator and after reading through some reviews for NVX's 1 farrod capacitor it should help even more. They also said wiring up the cap to the items experiencing the shortage works too. What do you guys say? First things I'll do are add a 4 gauge wire from the battery to core support and put a yellow top optima battery in. I'll look into the sticky for the headlight relay mod too. Alternator is cool though, blinkers don't slow down, headlights seem brighter, bet my defrost will work better now too.

[sly]

+1 start with the ground cable. if that sorts it, then you're done.

[DerekTheGreat]

Sorry for the delay here but this past weekend I finally got done with everything electrical upgrade related..

Even after I upgraded to a 3G alternator I was still experiencing headlight wincing/flickering whenever the bass hits with my car. I first upgraded the ground from the core support to the battery with very nice welding cable, stuff is as thick as a battery cable. This made zero difference with the wincing. Then came the yellow top Optima battery. Zero fucks difference that made. This past weekend I finally installed NVX's one farrod capacitor. They recommended 18" or less of cable between the cap & the amp. Not really possible unless I want the cap rubbing the spare tire with where my amp is at (Right where the factory premium/JBL amp would mount) So I compromised a bit by mounting the cap right on the bracket for the trunk, fits perfect there and there's even two holes for cable ties to support it & a tab to keep it from sliding. I'd say I have 24-28" of cable length.. Anyway, the capacitor doesn't seem to make much of a difference either. When I'm cruising it's up to 70% better as the wincing is very minimal but at idle or heavy bass the dimming is just as bad. For quick bass hits it's fine, but beyond that the cap 'drains' and it's as if I need one that's 10x larger. Of course after I bought & installed it I see everyone else says they don't do anything anyway - problem comes right after they supply the power to the amp, now the cap will need to take power to charge itself back up, power that is needed by the amp. Bass seems a bit weaker than it was, too.

Sigh.. I should've never bothered beyond the factory set-up. Can't listen to the radio loud because it seems to fudge with the computer, thing ends up idling funny for awhile and damn near stalls out when slowing down sometimes. Never did that before this audio shit. But nooooo, I just had to have audio... FML. Seems the only way to solve my problem would be to run another battery that is dedicated to the audio crap but then that's a whole other can of worms I don't want to open. What a waste of money. What kind of damage might I cause running it like this?