Someone double check me here. (Alt upgrade) updated w pics.

[MoparRocks]

Hey all,

So I just brought home a 71 Charger with the 340 the other week. The charging system is a complete joke on this thing and I have been having some issues. So like anything else I own, I am gonna upgrade to handle the deficiencies. I've been doing a lot of reading here the past week or so and came up with what I think is a great, if not slightly overkill solution. I am going to convert the charging system over to a more modern design rather than have the tiny stock wires on the alternator running thru the voltage regulator, ballast resistor, bulkhead connector, a meter, bulkhead connector, distribution block, battery route all on tiny little 14 gauge wires.

So below is a roughly sketched schematic of what I am going to do. Anyone see any issues with this? I know the rest of the wiring needs to be addressed but right now I'm looking for input on the charging system.



So it's a power master 165 amp 1 wire alternator. Plan is to run 0 gauge thru a 150 amp circuit breaker straight to the positive battery terminal (all modern cars). From the battery, run 4 gauge to the starter solenoid. Then 8 gauge thru a 50 amp breaker to the little junction stud thing on the fender by the battery to feed the cars fuse box and internals.

This should allow me to remove the voltage regulator, ballast resistor, and a meter correct? It already has a voltmeter installed in it. I am also adding an auxiliary fuse block off the power stud for some accessories. Is there anything else I need to change to ensure this set up works correctly? Anything with the old field wires to the old regulator?

[Dino]

Mine is similar but I run the wire from the alternator to the starter relay instead of the battery.  This was done becaus I could run the wires cleanly without any real mods.  The principle stays the same.  From the relay it goes to the battery with a fuse between them.  From the relay also straight into the cabin with a maxi fuse between those, bypassing the bulkhead connector.  My alt is only 90 mps so i run 6 gauge wires from alt to starter relay to battery with an 80 amp ANL fuse close to the battery.  From the starter relay I have 8 gauge going to the 50 amp maxi fuse and another 8 gauge going from the fuse to the original splice under the dash. The stock black and red wires have been eliminated along with the ammeter.  Additionally I run a 10 gauge wire from the ANL fuse to a 30 amp circuit breaker that powers the relays for the headlight upgrade mod.  The ANL is bolted to the underside of the battery tray.

[MoparRocks]

Ok. Not too worried on the main cable routing. I was planning to run the 0 gauge across the front underneath the radiator core support to the battery.

Is there anything I need to do with the voltage regulator and ballast resistor wiring? I was planning to just remove it all to clean things up since I am bypassing it all anyway.

Next phase is going to involve a new gauge pod from classic dash stuffed with some custom gauges from Speedhut since none of the current stock gauges really work anyway. The PO installed a voltmeter, water temp, and oil pressure gauge on a plate where the original radio was. I just want to be sure that just removing all the wiring and the voltage regulator and such won't mess anything up.

[Dino]

All that stuff becomes redundant so you can safely remove all of that.  If the bulkhead connectors are the same as on 2nd gens you can use needle nose pliers to squeeze the connector pins and push them and their wires straight out of the connector.

Be sure to post your progress!  It sounds very interesting.   

[Pete in NH]

Hi,

What ignition system will you be using? Any of the Chrysler ECU's will require keeping the ballast resistor. With a one wire alternator you can ignore the two voltage regulator wires.

I'm not a big fan of circuit breakers. At high DC currents when the contacts need to open they can sometimes weld the contacts together due to the extreme arcing and heat generated. I don't know where you might find a good, high quality 160 amp DC breaker that isn't going to be pricey. Breakers rated for AC current and DC current are different animals. DC breakers are much more difficult to build correctly and therefore more expensive.  A breaker with welded contacts is like no breaker at all. I much prefer fuses. Extreme arcing when a fuse suffers a severe overload actually helps the fuse open and clear the path faster.

High currents are difficult and expensive to handle safely, do you really need 165 amps?

[A383Wing]

better get a couple fire extinguishers for all that amperage going through the wires

[MoparRocks]

better get a couple fire extinguishers for all that amperage going through the wires

Why? All that amperage isn't going anywhere near the wimpy stock wires the way I am setting this up. Power Master recommends 8 gauge wire for this particular alternator. I am stepping that WAY up and going to 0 gauge for the main feed to the battery. The Optima Yellow Top I am installing is more than capable of handling that. Also, just because the alternator is rated at 165 amps does not mean that it will be putting that much out all the time. The built in regulator tells the alternator what they system needs and at what amperage and the alternator provides that. Remember, amps in this scenario refers to charge rate and ability. Just like you can't charge a tablet with a cell phone charger because it doesn't provide enough amps, the current battery isn't charging because the current alternator isn't providing it enough amps. And now that I've really looked at the wiring feeding it and the route it takes to get there, I'm not the least bit surprised. The way these things were wired from the factory is ass backwards to how it should be. Modern vehicles are just not done this way.

This alternator was bench tested to put out 111 amps at idle, 145 amps at cruise, and 164.5 amps at high RPMs with no load on it. So that's an ideal condition with nothing connected to it showing its maximum capabilities. Real world will obviously be less than that when other draws on the system are taken into account.

Why 165 amps? I tend to subscribe to bigger is better and overkill in my builds. I am running a similar model in my built Jeep Wrangler. Granted that has way more electrical accessories than the Charger does at the moment. But I figure if this set up can handle and keep up with running my 8,000 lb winch, off road lights, heated seats, amps and sound system, cb radio, dual electric fans, etc. it should be plenty to keep the Charger charged up. I will be adding stuff to the Charger down the line as well. This is going to be a Resto mod with a fair amount of modernizations done to make it more reliable and comfortable to drive. On the bench with the alternator, battery, and tray I also have 4 headlight conversion housings with amber LED halo rings, a complete set of 6k HID bulbs with associated ballasts and igniters ( the current headlights are a joke. I'd be better off holding a flashlight out the window), LED bulbs for the rest of the exterior lights, etc. I will also be adding a good sound system with subs and an amp among other things down the line. So I'm preparing the charging system now.

[MoparRocks]

Well today we undertook the swap. Absolute complete success. I'll try and get some pics up in the next day or two, but my daughters first birthday is tomorow so I kind of have other things going on.

As with anything else when working on a vehicle, plans changed a little bit as we got into it. So what we ended up with was a zero gauge cable from the alternator straight to the positive top terminal of the battery. No breaker. Just straight to the top post of the dual post Optima Yellow top I installed. I used a positive terminal clamp with set screws and 4 inputs for 0 gauge, 4 gauge, and two 8 gauge. We then ran 4 gauge from the top terminal clamp straight to the starter solenoid. On the side post we installed a smart battery disconnect and used 8 gauge from it to the factory post thingy under the hood where everything spiders off from to power the car. We also installed an 8 circuit auxiliary fuse block to this to power future accessories. Right now only one slot is filled by the headlight relay set up. We also swapped in hid headlights, led front turn signals, tail/turn/brake, and back up lights. Well a few anyway. One reverse light lense had a stripped screw we couldn't remove and one tail light the bulb is rusted into its socket.

We also added a few additional grounds. The old battery was grounded straight to the block. We left that. Added a ground strap from the alternator mount bolt to the block. Added a ground from the side negative battery post to the radiator core support. I still want to add one from the block to the firewall for good measure but we ran short on time.

First fire up was amazing! It fired right up without so much as a stutter. Alternator is working like a champ and I had 14.4v at the battery at idle. Killed the engine and the battery showed 13 volts. And this was just from maybe a minute of idling to make sure we got the belt tight enough.

[MoparRocks]

Well I snapped a few pics of what we did. It's worth noting that there was an AC pump on the car, but it was incomplete and not connected. It would have cost me way too much time and money to get it all fixed up and running so I decided to just remove it to save some weight and free up some power. Used an inexpensive chrome alternator bracket set up from Summit racing.

Here is the alternator in place. You can see the fat blue 0 gauge power cable coming off the back of it.



We drilled a large hole in the core support and installed a 1" grommet to route the cable thru.


The new Optima Yellow top firmly secures in an Artec Industries Optima Battery mount. (I have the same set up in my Wrangler. It's meant for the off-road community but they look and function great.) you can also see e auxiliary fuse box I added.