Big 3 Upgrade

[Twista89 10+ year member]

OK I just attemped the Big 3 upgrade and now I get even more dimming than before....I get voltage drops to like 12.8 when I would only get 13.3 drops. What did I do wrong???

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[KyleBechtold 5,000+ posts]

did you take off stock wiring? or just add?

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

add

 

[KyleBechtold 5,000+ posts]

hmm.. what sucks is you might have some completely irrelevant problem and have to trouble shoot em all

 

[PaulThompson229 10+ year member]

One must not be ran right, where exactly did you attatch each end of the batt - to chassis, and chassis to block wires?

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

I bolted the ground to chasis and chasis to engine block on the same bolt that is screwed through a sheet metal above the radiator support.

 

[PaulThompson229 10+ year member]

I bolted the ground to chasis and chasis to engine block on the same bolt that is screwed through a sheet metal above the radiator support.

The sheet metal might not be a good spot, can you get acsess to bolt directly to the frame?

Where did you bolt to the block?

 

[WOT]

I say your stupid

YES, the alt - > batt positive goes straight form the alt, tot he battery + terminal, no runs through the fuse box or any of that bs. Fuse that line with an aftermarket holder if you wanna be careful, many (me included) dont use one

As for your grounds, shorter the better, try and ground to a more solid spot, like the shock tower bolts, sand the hell out of the paint to get to bare metal, no " oh thats probly good enough", take out the 60 grit and get some shiny metal showing!!!

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

I already cut the wire and it isnt long enough to reach down to the bottom of the frame and i just unbolted a bolt on top of the engine head. I believe it was a bolt that held the engine head to the block....

 

[WOT]

Definetely wrong on what bolt you said you used, as access to that bolt on any engine requires removing valve covers and getting oilly. Do you know what your doing?

I dont care if you cut the wire to short, thats your fault for not doing it right the first time.

You obviously did something very wrong if your losing half a volt more than before

Get a proper ground then check back

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

I switched the ground point but at idle I still drop to around 13.0 volts... when Im driving it stays around 14 volts but I still got dimming at stop lights...

Also if anyone can help me find out what the stock alternators on a 95 pontiac grand am put out at idle then that would make me feel safer with my runs...I know its a 105amp max...

 

[I Like Waffle]

You need to ground it directly to the alt bracket, thats where i did mine. Obviously you have a bad ground/bad crimp somewhere. Go double check all your bolts.

 

[WOT]

You dont need to go direct to the alt bracket. But you obviously do have something done incorrectly, because if you left your stock grounds in place ( i hope ) all you were doing is adding on, theres no way it coulda got worse

 

[WOT]

Actually how big is the wire youre using? Just noticed youre only doing 1000ish rms and are running a 4 gauge kit.

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

I just bought some KLMX 1/0 wire. I have my sundown SAE-1200D installed as well as my Mean Machine 100.4 but I still have my 4 ga wire ran to the amps right now....Was going to do the Big 3 then run the 0 GA to the back of the car. I havent tuned my sundown yet...gains still at 0 till I run the wire..