Alternator trouble

[combsone]

I just had a 200amp alternator installed yesterday. Thus far, it seems to be putting out less than my stock (95a?) alt. Everything is fine during driving and even @ idle w/ the car in park. But when I get to a light and have to stay on the brakes, the battery gauge goes all the way down to the "N". Last night, my radio kept shutting off. I guess it's due to the break lights?
Anyways, I was wondering if you guys had helpful insight. ALso, the alt came w/ a smaller pulley but my mechanic just swapped it out w/ the bigger stock one. Is this the problem??? ALso, I have yet to upgrade the wire from the alt to batt + to 4 gauge yet. Could this be the problem?? Lastly, I can't seem to find any 4 gauge wire that has a power ring/lug that fits on the alt bolt. I checked Pepboys, Autozone and even picked up some power rings at Circuit City but they all don't fit....ANy help w/ that???

Sorry this is so long but I really appreciate any help given. Thanks.

comy BTW...I'm running up to 1300 watts most of the time.

 

[airkevin23]

What kind of battery do you have?

 

[combsone]

optima red top

comy

 

[Crankcase]

Actually, that pulley might be the problem. Making the pulley bigger slows the whole thing down, and maybe the alternator needs a certain speed to acheive 200 amps.

 

[cdsl227]

Originally posted by combsone
ALso, the alt came w/ a smaller pulley but my mechanic just swapped it out w/ the bigger stock one. Is this the problem??? ALso, I have yet to upgrade the wire from the alt to batt + to 4 gauge yet. Could this be the problem?? Lastly, I can't seem to find any 4 gauge wire that has a power ring/lug that fits on the alt bolt. I checked Pepboys, Autozone and even picked up some power rings at Circuit City but they all don't fit....ANy help w/ that???

You need the smaller pulley to keep the Alts RPMs up. Smaller pulley is a must. Higher RPMs means more power.

Put a washer or two under the cable ring to give yourself a flat surface to mount to.

There should be enough thread to space with washers and get the nut on top.

I got a 200amp Alt running fogs, 2 Amps...etc, etc...and it works fine to power everything, but I'm also running 2 batteries with an Isolator.

The 200amp Alt should be FINE with one battery.

 

[BadBoy]

Where did you get your altternaor form and how much did you pay.I want to install a 200amp alternator in my explorer becouse when i play my sounds my gauge moves like winshield wipers.

Also was wondering if anyone new how much amps the stock alternator puts out at idle becouse i know alternators put out lowers amps at idle.The 200amp alternator i am looking at getting puts out 135 at idle.

 

[cdsl227]

Not all High Amp alternators are equal.

I got mine from Mr. Alternator, very reasonable price and outstanding service!! Quick! Quick!

PowerMasterMotorsports makes one that's about double the price of Mr. Alternator, but they give you- I think 125 amps available at idle...you could get the same from a Mr. Alternator unit...you'd have to change the pulley to the smaller one...mine doesn't put out full power at idle...but works great!

Then there's Mean Green, about as expensive as PowerMaster- only problem is you can't find any real specs on it...they just say 300% more power at idle, but I've heard they're good.

Another solution to the power problems with the sound system is to run dual batteries with an isolator, a Mr. Alternator unit should do just fine with that setup...that's what I'm running, but when I get time to locate the smaller pulley I'm going to swap the stock pulley out.

PowerMaster Motor Sports

Mr. Alternator

Mean Green

 

[combsone]

Update: I went back to my mechanic the next day and he swapped the smaller pulley out for me and upgraded the alt wire to 4 gauge (he sanded the power ring down to fit). Everything worked fine and I didn't have to get a smaller belt w/ the smaller pulley. But the next morning, after I started my car and took off my car brake's seemed to be not working well so I pulled over. All of a sudden the engine rpms ran really high like 4k rpms. So I turned it off and had to run over to the mechanic. After we checked the car, the car started up fine w/o any problems. Don't know what happened but other than that the alt works fine now. My battery gauge doesn't fluctuate anymore although, I have yet to really crank my system. I'm gonna go to autozone to check out what it does at idle. My stock one was doing 76amps @ 2k rpms. One more thing, it seems like I've lost some horsepower or something though. I'll update everyone w/ my autozone results if anybody wants to know. BTW, I got mines off of ebay from TKSports for only $155+shipping. Cheap price but I'll have to get back to everyone to let you guys know if it was worth it.

comy