Downside of using pulleys and a stereo?

[Chewer]

I have a V8 5.0L 99 Explorer and I wanted to get pulley's for my car. I know they take power away from the accessories and put them to your engine but I have about 900watts being pulled off my car from my stereo amps and I was curious if installing pulley's would really kill my battery or would it require just getting a better battery? Can the alternator power everything with pulleys?

-Grant

 

[Ray Hutchinson]

Alternator

Grant,

Well since Amps = Watts divided by Volts, and you say you're running 900 Watts of amplifiers ( I would assume this is peak watts amp output not RMS), but since no system is 100% efficient, you're drawing about 75-80 amps on peaks! That's a pretty heavy draw on a stock Alternator (probably a max output of about 80 amps). So, unless you want to go to a much higher output alternator (100+A or so), my guess is you'll be asking for problems to reduce your Alt RPM by installing power pulleys. A real good Auto Sound Shop , if you have one in your area, should be able to give you a good answer. You might also try calling Crutchfield: 1-800-955-3000, and seem to be interested in buying an amp or something, and then pop the alternator /pulley question. They should know.

 

[mrboyle]

I don't know about the power questions, or if it is a problem with the 5.0's, but just FYI I have seen a lot of Chevy's that develop cooling problems with underdrive pullies. The reason is that the waterpump is spunmuch faster than it is designed to and this in turn will cause a reduction in the effectivness of the cooling system. Like I said, I don't know if the 5.0's have this problem or not, but you may want to look into it.