And here we go again now with my truck.

My alternator took a dump on my 2014 truck at 8 oclock at night on October 14th. Had to get one at autozone since it was late at night and needed to go to work the next day, cost me $400 and only lasted 5 months! That autozone one failed on monday of this week, so I took it off and ordered one from the dealership.

Autozone guys threw a fit not wanting to give me a refund but I firmly told them I don't want this rebuilt POS on my truck anymore or any other one.

Everything seems more stable now, my lights, my volt gauge etc.

The kicker is, the damn brand new GM unit from the dealership was right around the same cost as the autozone piece of **** rebuilt alternator.

 

The saga resumes.....

 

Hopefully it ends as soon as it started now that I went to a brand new OE unit.

 

Good to see you 00pooterSS, hope the new OE unit solves the issue.

 

I got a super duty mecham alt.....yesss it was $$$$$$ .....let you know as soon as I get it installed

 

Sorry for the delay, car's just been mostly sitting since I replaced it. I took it out the other day and it's holding better voltage while driving but it is still slowly losing voltage the longer the car runs. So, something is still wrong somewhere. Gotta figure out what.

 

I wanted to post in here to get some idea's.

I have a 2000 Firehawk and have this problem for a long time. I just did the 145amp DR44 alternator swap last night and I'm still having the same issue.

When I first start the car the voltage is about 14.00v at the battery and HPtuners shows module voltage 13.6v

After the car runs for a while the voltage is about 13.7 at the battery and HPTuners shows module voltage 12.9-13.0v

I've replace the factory alternator several years ago due to the regulator doing strange things.

I bought a DR44 145 alternator at a local alternator/starter shop that we use a lot. The guy has been doing it for about 40 years and I've always been really happy with his stuff. When I bought the alternator he put it on his alternator tester and showed me it puts out 140+ amps under load.

Since I'm having the exact same issue with a bigger alternator, it's obviously not the alternator.

When I did the alternator swap I installed a new 4 pin connector. It has a NAPA/Gates belt with a Katech manual tensioner. I am 100% there's no belt slippage.

I'm kinda lost on where to go next.

 

curious....why a DR 44 instead of a AD 244 ? are they not different ?

 

The AD 244 is used on newer GM's and has a 2 wire connector and the DR 44 uses the flat 4 pin connector like our F bodies.

At least that's what Google told me. I think the AD244 has a replicable rectifier compared to the DR44 that is built in.

 

After doing some reading last night, it looks like I need to do the big 3 upgrade. I logged voltage last night at WOT and my voltage problem is worse than I thought. Dual hellcat pumps, both fans running, a stereo and everything else, 11.7v is bad. It dropped to 11.5v a few times.

 

three F-body alternators and I lost the 5th truck alternator last night taking me out of first round. This car is awesome since the day we built it and runs the number every pass....unless the damn alternator goes out again! I am going to start to pully it down. The shifts at 7k+ and that is all I am left with


FYI last alt had 10 passes and 100 miles on it

 

Hello all. I bought an 02 35th anniv Z28 almost 3 years ago and it runs great except a few times the + battery cable has lost connection at battery. So I would tighten the bolt and it would start up and idle slow for maybe 10 seconds or so then it would get excited or regain connection of charge wire and charge and run normal again. 1 night on street that is really dark it lost connection and lights went out and it died. Did'nt think about it times before as all were daytime and it always started right up after tightening battery cable. So 3/8" threaded hole of battery + was stripped and the special bolt that was on there also was a little worn. So I got new battery and new longer bolts for amp wire and large charge wire with large ring terminal. So it worked for a few months or so then it started discharging about 30 seconds to 1 minute after starting it up and it was consistently doing this. I have never had or heard of anyone with this issue. The car already has the kg3 or ad244 145 amp alter on it so I went to Copper State starter and alternator and bought 1 wire regulator and rectifier and brush holder assembly, went home and rebuilt it. I already had bearings for it. Put it on and same thing.So I decided to run a wire from 1 of the power relays secondary with around 350 or 400 ohms of resistance so that the alternater would put out a little more than factory and connect it to the 1 wire that comes from the dash module with a diode on the dash module wire so power would not back feed to dash module Guy I bought car from had put on a cable with fuse like the stereo heads would use to power Their huge amps. I did'nt expect the quaruple 0 cable the connections at fuse to go bad but thats what it turned out to be at least on My car. So I bought some 4gauge stranded from home depot put it on and now after starting it shows about 15 or 15.5 volts and with stereo and wipers ..........etc the lowest it goes is about 1/8" or so above the 13volt straight up center of the gauge. It spends most of the time between 14 and 14.5 which is a little higher than factory so Im curious to see whether the battery lasts longer or not as long or about the same. Just an FYI I normally get 4 years out of My batteries . I always turn accessories off and let idle for a few seconds before I shut it down and with Phoenix heat .

 

LilJayV10 You know that You can modify the alternaters output by adding resistence to the sense wire . I read about it somewhere a while back . Dont remember where but it is good info. 500 ohms would be the maximum amount of resistence You can add. There is already resistence in the circuit going to Your alternater sense wire. Even the newer chevys with pcm and dash module .......etc You could start low like maybe 100 ohms and see how much more it puts out and go from there. I used to own a chevy 454 RV that was'nt keeping the 3 batteries charged enough. It only had a 100 amp alternater so I ran new wire from volt gauge with around 400 ohms on that wire which helped alot. Thought it could help. Good luck.

 

I saw a YT video of someone explaining how to do that. I need to go back and watch it again.

Adding more resistance effectively lowers the voltage doesn't it? Do you or anyone else know why adding the resistor makes the alternator charge more?

 

Sorry I haven't been around much so I didn't see this.

It falling to 13.7 is not a problem, and the modules reading a bit lower is likely not an issue either.

Are you having a problem with it? Or just wondering about the disparity in voltage between the battery voltage and HP tuners module?


Edit: I read your post saying it's dropping to 11.x
Your alternator is bad or being over worked and can't keep up. With all the add on electronics I would recommend going to a high power aftermarket alternator, doing the big 3, and making sure you have 8 or so gauge high quality OFC wiring going to your fuel pumps. No cheap CCA crap. If you go to a stereo shop they will know the difference between cca and ofc, one stands for copper clad aluminum, the other stands for oxygen free copper. You want ofc

I like buying wiring from knukonceptz.com

 

RPM's took out every **** alternator I had. But my actual OEM one never minded the high rpm. Where are you getting the alternators from?

 

For this junk yard tactic to work I think people will have to go to a newer alternator now. It's gonna be pretty hard to find an OEM alternator that is now 17 years old at the youngest. 10 years ago it wasn't so bad.

I think the one from my 2014 truck would probably still bolt up, but would need some sort of adaptation for the exciter wire. So that's the used truck alternator I would try now, is the 14+ truck alternator (if they do in fact bolt up). But on the flip side, they fail, where it seems the old 244 never did. So now the only solution may be buying a billy bad *** $400 aftermarket one.

 

I would go back to the alternatorman for a built AD244...seems he is the only one building quality alts at reasonable prices

he sells parts too...so he is a one stop shop

i highly recommend him

 

That's what I would do if I didn't want to buy a mechman or something similar.

 

Hello everyone. I want to make 1 small correction for used parts. The website is "car-part.com" no s . It is the only way to search used parts. Also Quick Starts is a huge alternator and parts retailer for high amp stuff