07 2.5i-wagon

You know you have too many electrical add ons when you have to buy different barrery terminals to de cluster**** your battery area. Bought the standard type epoxy coated lead ones that clamp down on the cable, ran accessories off the bolts for the clamp.

Plans for the winter: build a roof basket. Possibly fab up cross bars instead of buying them. Buy utility trailer and fab that up to how I like it. Buy summer tires to go on my freshly painted stock wheels

 
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Sounds like you need a bus bar to clean up the installation of electrical stuff.

And awesome that clusterfuck gets through the word filter
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I spelt it ****. The factory terminals were the standard jap car type ring clamp. This new setup is flat and spread out so it already looks cleaner. I cleaned up a bit of wiring doing the valve cover gaskets since I took it all out to make it easier. Now I just need to consolidate a few more things into some wire protector and id should look better.

Now, I saw on ralliteks website a combo ground/ alternator wiring kit. I already did a whole engine bay reground, but they have a large fused battery cable goingfrom the alternator right to the positive. I looked at the factory wires and they're tiny, would I really gain anything to add a second wire? And if so would it necessarily need to be fused?

 
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Ended up running my own secondary alternator wire to the battery using a piece of 4ga battery cable and a walmart special amp fuse. Fried the 80 amp that came in it but the 40 amp spare seems to function. Between this, the battery terminals and diy grounding kit I've noticed my headlights got a lot brighter. Next up, 130a alternator.

 
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Did you measure your voltage drop before you added more wires to the alt?

Any voltage drop now? (there shouldn't be.. but never hurts to check).

 
No voltage tester. But the headlights are a damn good indication. I thought the hellas needed new bulbs till I did this. I should get a voltage tester and test it all setup and then without the power from alt and extra grounds

 
How do you have your hellas wired? I have mine directly to the battery on a relay.

But, voltage drop from the alt will still affect that. I have almost a volt drop on my GL with everything running at idle. That's pretty much unacceptable... It's probably old wiring that wants to catch fire any minute. hah

 
Well to answer you question late, putting a larger wire in between the battery and the alternator will lower the resistance allowing more amperage to flow. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head for a 4 gauge wire but a 10 gauge wire has 1 ohm of resistance per foot and a 1 gauge wire has .1 ohms of resistance per foot. The calculations aren't linear. I want to say that 4 gauge wire has around .33 ohms of resistance. So you gained a good amount of current. The fuse is just there so you dont fry anything before the fuse panel.

 
And you should definitely have a fuse on that wire...

It's a 90amp alt, think of what a 90amp welder can do. You want a fuse...

And you can't go and say a certain gauge of wire has some resistance, it's a function of the length of the wire.

 
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well my whole lenght of wire is sub 3ft, and while I'm no electrical engineer, I'd say the experiment has been a success so far. and I'm amazed it hasnt fried that 40 amp maxi fuse

 
I-wagon said:
I'm amazed it hasnt fried that 40 amp maxi fuse
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Well, didn't you say you still have the old wiring in there along with the new?

The old wiring will be taking some of the load.

If you just have that fuse... Wait until you start your car when it's -25 in the morning, flip the switch for all the bright lights, and turn the blower on full. Then that fuse will go pop.

 
got a roof basket on, now I gots more storage, thatnks ray! and driving in the other day in the snow storm I had all the lights blazin and the suystem going, lights dimming with the beat, looks like I gotta save up for a bigger alternator, found one on jcwhitney I'll post a link to later

 
Last week I replaced the regular parking lights between the high and low beam with l.e.d.s today fabbed brackets and purchased lights to mount on the back of the roof basket so I can see where I'm going in reverse/ blind tailgaters

 
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