Alternator/Battery
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Teching In
Joined: Apr 2010
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From: Urbana Il
Alternator/Battery I have recently added a 4 channel amp and speakers to my camaro i have noticed a little change when i come to a stop and my lights dim just a little bit. I have recently built my own stealth box and am getting ready to add a 10 inch sub and another amp so that will draw more power. Everyone that i have talked to says put a red top battery in. I have an interstate battery now and i have always run and interstate battery. so should i run a bigger alternator?
I have recently added a 4 channel amp and speakers to my camaro i have noticed a little change when i come to a stop and my lights dim just a little bit. I have recently built my own stealth box and am getting ready to add a 10 inch sub and another amp so that will draw more power. Everyone that i have talked to says put a red top battery in. I have an interstate battery now and i have always run and interstate battery. so should i run a bigger alternator?
Big 3 upgrade is replacing the Battery (negative) to chassis ground, Battery (negative) to engine block and battery (positive) to alternator with new cables that are at least 1 gauge larger ie replace any 8 gauge with 4 gauge, 4 gauge with 2 gauge and so on, when running a high output alternator you need to beef these cables up so they can handle the increased output of the alternator, I am personally waiting for my wire to come in to do mine and I will be overkilling it with all 1/0 gauge wire through the whole system described above. I am also going to replace the 4 gauge that runs from the positive battery to the accessory post where the under hood fuses are incase I decide to relocate my amp power cable on the other side of the car from the PCM (never run your high current cables next to the computer, as it risks frying the computer, it happened to a friend of mine so I know it can happen)
Be careful when picking the wire you choose to do this with as not all brands are of equal quality and there are 2 types of cable (CCA- Copper clad aluminum and OFC- Oxygen Free copper) OFC will cost more per foot put can handle more current. Read reviews many companies use thicker insulation and less wire but still call it whatever gauge based on the outside diameter of the wire.
I ordered my wire from Knukonceptz.com thru amazon they seem to get great reviews on there quality of wire and I will let you know when I get it, also http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/af...ery-power.html there is a Link there to a guy that will custom make you a kit and he comes highly recommended on that board.
Be careful when picking the wire you choose to do this with as not all brands are of equal quality and there are 2 types of cable (CCA- Copper clad aluminum and OFC- Oxygen Free copper) OFC will cost more per foot put can handle more current. Read reviews many companies use thicker insulation and less wire but still call it whatever gauge based on the outside diameter of the wire.
I ordered my wire from Knukonceptz.com thru amazon they seem to get great reviews on there quality of wire and I will let you know when I get it, also http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/af...ery-power.html there is a Link there to a guy that will custom make you a kit and he comes highly recommended on that board.
Also to the OP if you wanna reduce the headlight dimming when breaking another thing you could do is go to HID headlights, In my old honda when I had HID's I never had dimming headlights, but check reviews and find a good one, see this link https://ls1tech.com/forums/stereo-el...kit-birds.html for info on switching to HID's and the kit everyone here seems to run.
On another side note one benefit of switching to the redtop is you get the top posts on the battery and that would allow for doing the "big 3" while still retaining all the factory wiring, but unless your battery tests as weak I wouldn't replace it as the redtops runs for like 186 dollars these days, my battery was bad (tested at like 360 CCA basically half what it should be), because the guy I bought the car from hadn't driven it much if any in the last 6 months and we all know what happens when batteries sit to long.
Last edited by Daniel Richards; Apr 4, 2012 at 04:38 AM.
i dont know much about the V6 alt.....but i would bet it is a CS130 with a different external housing than LS1 CS130s.......so you can always get better internals for the V6 alt
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Big 3 upgrade is replacing the Battery (negative) to chassis ground, Battery (negative) to engine block and battery (positive) to alternator with new cables that are at least 1 gauge larger ie replace any 8 gauge with 4 gauge, 4 gauge with 2 gauge and so on, when running a high output alternator you need to beef these cables up so they can handle the increased output of the alternator, I am personally waiting for my wire to come in to do mine and I will be overkilling it with all 1/0 gauge wire through the whole system described above. I am also going to replace the 4 gauge that runs from the positive battery to the accessory post where the under hood fuses are incase I decide to relocate my amp power cable on the other side of the car from the PCM (never run your high current cables next to the computer, as it risks frying the computer, it happened to a friend of mine so I know it can happen)
Be careful when picking the wire you choose to do this with as not all brands are of equal quality and there are 2 types of cable (CCA- Copper clad aluminum and OFC- Oxygen Free copper) OFC will cost more per foot put can handle more current. Read reviews many companies use thicker insulation and less wire but still call it whatever gauge based on the outside diameter of the wire.
I ordered my wire from Knukonceptz.com thru amazon they seem to get great reviews on there quality of wire and I will let you know when I get it, also http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/af...ery-power.html there is a Link there to a guy that will custom make you a kit and he comes highly recommended on that board.
Be careful when picking the wire you choose to do this with as not all brands are of equal quality and there are 2 types of cable (CCA- Copper clad aluminum and OFC- Oxygen Free copper) OFC will cost more per foot put can handle more current. Read reviews many companies use thicker insulation and less wire but still call it whatever gauge based on the outside diameter of the wire.
I ordered my wire from Knukonceptz.com thru amazon they seem to get great reviews on there quality of wire and I will let you know when I get it, also http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/af...ery-power.html there is a Link there to a guy that will custom make you a kit and he comes highly recommended on that board.
Last edited by Daniel Richards; Apr 7, 2012 at 03:07 AM.
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