Just bought a powermax 250 amp ALT, Need overdrive pulley?

[vroomzoomboom]

the reason why i went to a larger crank pulley was to spin the blower faster. there is a small pulley on the blower right now. i think i can go one smaller, then i have to start cutting the snout. i also have a 1 off damper (well, i should say 2, another member has one like it here) that is for a mustang that has been pinned for a crank trigger wheel from a 5L explorer. because of that, i can change crank pulley sizes.
if your looking to get a different damper, you can try asp racing ASP Racing
or damper dudes DamperDudes.net (Americas Largest supplier of harmonic balancers)
ive dealt with damper dudes when i had to have my balancer repaired. good guy to deal with. asp, everytime i have called them, the guy treated me like a dick over the phone which has kinda turned me off from them

 

[Devan]

the reason why i went to a larger crank pulley was to spin the blower faster. there is a small pulley on the blower right now. i think i can go one smaller, then i have to start cutting the snout. i also have a 1 off damper (well, i should say 2, another member has one like it here) that is for a mustang that has been pinned for a crank trigger wheel from a 5L explorer. because of that, i can change crank pulley sizes.
if your looking to get a different damper, you can try asp racing ASP Racing
or damper dudes DamperDudes.net (Americas Largest supplier of harmonic balancers)
ive dealt with damper dudes when i had to have my balancer repaired. good guy to deal with. asp, everytime i have called them, the guy treated me like a dick over the phone which has kinda turned me off from them

You know what you should do instead of considering cutting the snout to fit a smaller pulley is get a Venom cooler from stiegemeier. It has a snout that has already been cut down to fit like a 2.4 or 2.3 something like that maybe even smaller I'm not sure I forget exactly. And I'm sure you know that they have special tools out there that bolt of the spindle where the pulley goes to shave down the snout. But I would really consider going with the Venom cooler.
Venom Coolers

but anyway go figure this one out I put the smaller pulley on my tuff stuff alternator and idle voltage seems to be worse I had to bring my idles up to like 900. It doesn't make any sense I even tried charging my battery my battery is good I'm going to try swapping back to the stock pulley and see what happens.

 

[CDW6212R]

As the pulley gets smaller, you might end up with some belt slippage, which will reduce the voltage much more. How is the wrap of the belt on the pulley as you change sizes, same, worse etc?

 

[Devan]

Their is even more belt wrap then stock because i have a dual idler with 100mm idlers and their is still plenty of belt tension plus i have a cpl belts and i can swap from 100mm to 90mm idlers. the belt wraps 45-50% of the alt pulley. I dont think slippage is the issue. Is their anyway to wire the regulator to send out a constant voltage? like ive seen 1 wire mods and stuff but havent looked to much into it. What if I got the regulator off of my original 200 amp alternator?

 

[CDW6212R]

I would consult with a local alternator shop. The 4G alternator has limited aftermarket support, my shop here said the main windings are what others upgrade, that the regulator section is basically stock. The main windings I was told are a weak link, that if it fails, the repair is expensive. The older 3G's have much better aftermarket support and upgrade potential.

 

[Devan]

I would consult with a local alternator shop. The 4G alternator has limited aftermarket support, my shop here said the main windings are what others upgrade, that the regulator section is basically stock. The main windings I was told are a weak link, that if it fails, the repair is expensive. The older 3G's have much better aftermarket support and upgrade potential.

I have heard the same thing. It is hard to find parts for 4g alternators although not impossible. I have found parts for them. I went from a 250 amp down to a 225 hoping I would have better idle voltage however I was unsuccessful. it actually seems like the 250 I had might have been better. But I did put the stock (57mm) pulley back on the tuff stuff 225 amp alt just so I could compare idle voltages. With the 57mm stock pulley I have to have my idle set at 950-1000 just to maintain an 11.4 idle voltage and that drops once you start turning on a lot of accessories. So now I am switching back to my 48mm pulley to see what kind of idle voltage readings I get. If I have to buy another alternator or downgrade to a 200 amp alternator I will so that I can have a good Idle voltage because I need it. I have a power inverter in my truck that runs a 360 and 2 wall outlets in the vehicle. When I'm parked and my idle is 940-960 and I turn my xbox 360 on it makes the voltage drop and once it hits about 10.8 volts the xbox shuts off. Not only that when your driving a snow plow RPMs are low quite often when plowing. And the amount of power that thing uses drops voltage real quick and then the speed of the plow suffers along with everything else in the vehicle. So if once I switch back to my 48mm that doesn't help I will be in the market for another alternator. Really what I would like to do is go DUAL Alternator lmao. And ive even put thought into 2nd alternator placement. Maybe Ill add like a stockish alternator as my second alternator so that Ill have good idle voltage and that will combine with my 225 amp alt so maybe ill have like 325-350 amp with good idle voltage. What do you think about that? heres some links from a quick search. I could even fab up my own stuff if need be.
Team GP DUAL Alt Bracket FORD EXPLORER 4.0 SOHC-they even have a triple alt bracket
JZ Dual Alt Bracket Kit Ford SOHC 4.0l ($285)
The websites for those dual alternator brackets above do not have pictures posted of their products installed on a 4.0 so I emailed them to see if they could send me a picture. The bracket this guy made in the video below is not really an option for me because I have a fuel splitter block there bolted to those accessory bolt holes although I could make it work with some fabrication but I would like to see what the Team GP and JZ Dual alt brackets look like before I decide to fab up my own. If you go back to a picture I posted on this thread back on Dec 7 you can see why I cant put my alternator in a location like this guy did in his video. Although I could prolly design something to make it work. But I am waiting for Team GP and JZ to email me back pictures of their dual alt brackets installed so I can see what is what. When they do I will post the pictures if they send em.

 

[Devan]

the reason why i went to a larger crank pulley was to spin the blower faster. there is a small pulley on the blower right now. i think i can go one smaller, then i have to start cutting the snout. i also have a 1 off damper (well, i should say 2, another member has one like it here) that is for a mustang that has been pinned for a crank trigger wheel from a 5L explorer. because of that, i can change crank pulley sizes.
if your looking to get a different damper, you can try asp racing ASP Racing
or damper dudes DamperDudes.net (Americas Largest supplier of harmonic balancers)
ive dealt with damper dudes when i had to have my balancer repaired. good guy to deal with. asp, everytime i have called them, the guy treated me like a dick over the phone which has kinda turned me off from them

Thanx for the links to those 2 pulley manufactures I had already heard of ASP and Ive prolly got a cpl products from their company but ive never been on their website. I did contact both ASP and damperdudes. Damperdudes has not gotten back to me but ASP did email me and said they could modify the stock pulley to make it larger for $250 with a 2-3 week time frame. I also reached out to a few custom pulley manufactures one of which was www.torquetrans.com/ and they called me back today. They said they would do it for $300. They are willing to make a whole new pulley based off the original design. They wanted a CAD design and I asked them if I could buy a crank pulley and ship it to them they said that would be fine and that that would prolly be an even better idea then a CAD design. I can get one of those for cheap, dirt cheap if I go to a junkyard and pull and ship it myself. I used a micrometer to try to determine the factory size of the crank pulley while it was on my truck, and from rib to rib I came up with about 5.83 to 5.85 inches I think(If anybody has an exact size lemme know). So how much bigger should I go to maintain good idle voltage(12 volts minimum at idle with some electrical load from accessories)? Keep in mind I am gonna be getting more boost from this and I don't wanna overspin my accessories (water pump, power steering, A/C) I'm not to worried about the A/C but I prolly could have overdrive pulleys made for the water pump and power steering if I make the crank pulley significantly big enough to impact the speed of the water pump and power steering.

*Update*
OK so on the factory size pulley (58mm) at about 925 rpm while stopped I was seeing 11.2-11.4 idle volts with no electrical load and then when I would turn my hvac on I would see 11 volts and it would stay somewhat stable based on battery power but once I turned on any other accessory say my power inverter then my voltage would have a steady decline. So now with my aftermarket pulley (47mm) at 925 rpm while stopped I was seeing 12.2 volts with no electrical load and then with hvac and inverter on as well as other accessories it would drop to about 11.8 maybe lower but it would stay stable. So a 9 millimeter alternator pulley reduction yielded me about a 1 volt increase at a 925 rpm idle and also enabled me to maintain we'll say an 11.5 voltage under an electrical load. So I'm thinkin maybe I should increase my crank pulley diameter by about 15-20MMs which is .591-.787 inches so that should yield about 3 to 4 pounds of boost. Now I would like to be able to maintain a 12.5 idle voltage with accessories powered on with a stock idle of around 650 rpm, is an increase in diameter of 15-20mm to much, to little or just right? And will that overspin my water pump or power steering at high rpm?

So now the questions remain:
1.Do I go with a bigger crank pulley? If so how much bigger? (based off of pulley sizing from my 03 cobra every .45-.5" is about 2 pounds boost)
2.Do I go with Dual alternator? If so what amperage should I choose for my second alternator to have excellent idle voltage?
3.Do I look for another alternator that has good idle voltage and a decently high amperage?

The thing that doesn't make sense to me is my crank pulley to alternator pulley ratio is pretty high so why am I not getting a better voltage. If my crank pulley diameter from rib to rib is 5.85" and my alt pulley size is 1.85" that means I have a 3.16 crank to alternator pulley ratio. So with a crank rpm of 925 my alternator pulley is seeing 2900 rpm why is the voltage not so much higher then it is? makes no sense right.

And also get this if i hook my voltmeter up to the post on the alternator and run a wire into the cabin so itll reach the volt meter and then ground the voltmeter to chassis somewhere in the cabin the volt meter always reads 1 volt above anything else that reads voltage. Could this signify that my battery is loosing 1 volt in the wiring from the alternator post? Would upgrading the alternator wiring help with that? Or am i just getting that reading because im checking voltage directly from the alternator?

 

[CDW6212R]

I'd confirm the chassis grounds first, any issue of those would lower the voltage reaching the circuits/loads. If you know those are fine, and the idle voltage is still low, I'd aim hard at a second alternator. Altering the crank pulley etc, is a more work, and a 2nd alternator could solve it all. Two stock units would be plenty I'd bet.

There are also voltage controllers that will provide a specific voltage(say 14.5v), no matter what the input is. Those won't help total wattage, but they can solve dropping voltages like for the XBox etc. Those are common in motorsports for ignitions, fuel pumps etc. They aren't cheap, but first get the power you need, and see where the idle voltage is.

That video is cool of the 04 Ranger, but don't copy his tiny idler pulley. That thing is way too small, make sure an idler is a good 2" or so. He's losing belt wrap on his PS, and AC pulley.

 

[Devan]

I'd confirm the chassis grounds first, any issue of those would lower the voltage reaching the circuits/loads. If you know those are fine, and the idle voltage is still low, I'd aim hard at a second alternator. Altering the crank pulley etc, is a more work, and a 2nd alternator could solve it all. Two stock units would be plenty I'd bet.

There are also voltage controllers that will provide a specific voltage(say 14.5v), no matter what the input is. Those won't help total wattage, but they can solve dropping voltages like for the XBox etc. Those are common in motorsports for ignitions, fuel pumps etc. They aren't cheap, but first get the power you need, and see where the idle voltage is.

That video is cool of the 04 Ranger, but don't copy his tiny idler pulley. That thing is way too small, make sure an idler is a good 2" or so. He's losing belt wrap on his PS, and AC pulley.

The guy in that video also sounds a little like a weirdo lol. But based on the pictures Ive posted of the work I do, do you think I would be stupid enough to just use ball bearings as an idler lol? Hes got 0 gauge wiring coming over the fan shroud and a megafuse bolted to the engine cover. **** just looks dumb lol but hey if it works it works. But I would just never do a job like that lmfao. Wiring is one of my specialties though, I always like to solder and shrinkwrap if possible, if I have to use electrical tape I use top of the line tape and I usually like to run my wiring through the factory harness wherever/whenever possible, sometimes it takes forever but its worth it for the safety peace of mind and how good it looks. Another thing you have to be careful of sometimes is if you have to replace wiring for module network communication you should always run the exact same gauge wiring, if you run a thicker or a thinner gauge communication wiring that can cause problems on occasion especially with new cars. I have ran into problems like that with brand new Fords at my dealership. I have plenty of extra pulleys floatin around to use as a good idler, plus his power steering reservoir is all zip tied in place stupidly lmao. If you look at the image of the JZ Dual Alternator bracket from the link I posted 2 posts ago you can see that it looks like it comes with a reservoir, prolly to replace the power steering reservoir because that location most likely gets used for the second alternator. The Team GP dual alt bracket doesn't have a picture posted of what the product even looks like. I'm still waiting to hear back from both of them, hopefully they'll send me the images I asked for with the brackets installed on a 4.0 so I can see what they look like. I would prefer not to remove and/or relocate my power steering reservoir plus I have a fuel splitter block mounted in the accessory holes on the top of the power steering pump right there, although that is really likely to be the only candidate spot for a 2nd alternator location. So if the Team GP dual alt bracket also relocates the alternator to where the power steering reservoir is then Ill go with whichever one I like better unless I feel I can build a better one, but if I do have to relocate my power steering reservoir I would most likely end up getting something like this Aeroflow Power Steering Reservoir GTO/G8 to make it look good. Not just zip tie the reservoir out of the way like weirdo did in the video lol.

I think my chassis grounds are good but I'm gonna check my engine strap and other grounds and run temporary grounds to see if anything makes a difference but I doubt it will. I think what I'm gonna do is go with the dual alternator ( whichever bracket I like better or make my own) and get a slightly larger crank pulley(I have to replace my crank oil seal anyway its leaking pretty bad, took care of all other leaks), not big enough to overspin my other accessories but big enough to speed up the alt and the blower a TAD. But I am also going to look into these voltage controllers you speak of as well. On another note I have had my 47mm alt pulley installed for a few days now with a 900 to 950 idle setting and even with most of my accessories on at idle it hasn't really been dropping below 11.4. it seems like it is working a lot better although when I get on the gas all the lights brighten up and voltage goes up to 13.4 I don't want that to happen, its no good for the modules amongst other things. I just wanna set my idle back to stock (like around 650 I think) and have it maintain a minimum of 13 volts at all times no matter what.

O and one last thing in the weirdos video (lol) on the 2nd alternator for the regulator wiring he has the yellow wire(pin 1)connected directly to the voltage out post on the alternator and the green wire connected to a 12v source that he tapped into the abs module wiring for. On the Ford wiring diagrams for my truck it states that pin 3 (light green/red wire) is the battery indicator and it illustrates that wire leading back to the instrument cluster so I was thinking of wiring pin 3 wiring from the second alternator into pin 3 wiring from the first alternator that way hopefully if either alternator fails the battery indicator lighting will come on on the instrument cluster although I think it only comes on if the voltage on the pin 3 wiring drops below a certain point, if I have both alternator pin 3s wired in together and one of the alternators fails then the other alternator voltage would prolly make up for it and never turn the IC battery indicator on but if I leave only one alternator hooked up to pin 3 wiring back the the IC then its possible for the battery indicator to go on if one of the alternators fails and the voltages drops enough, right? How should I go about wiring pin 3(LG/RD)? The green wiring in weirdos video doesn't make any sense because he has pin 3 wired into a 12v source when it should be wired into the IC battery indicator light although it is a newer ranger, I should lookup the wiring diagram for a newer ranger but I'm almost positive it should be the same as my truck. So what should I do with pin 1 and pin 3 wiring on my second alternator? And what is pin 2 for on these regulators? it doesn't say in my wiring diagrams because only pin 1 and 3 are used. Is it a voltage sensing lead?

 

[Devan]

+I think I found a couple pictures of JZ's dual alt bracket installed on a Ford 4.0 OHV motor on their facebook page. This looks like a much better bracket then what they have posted on their website however the one on their website that I posted a few posts ago is for a 4.0 SOHC not a 4.0 OHV like this one is. however theyre prolly similar and if they are then where it bolts up on the left side of the power steering pump pulley is going to be a problem for me because my dual idler pulley bracket is mounted to that bolt as well. what ill prolly have to do is shave down the thickness of both brackets to half the thickness where they bolt up to the bolt on the left side of the power steering pump pulley and mount one in front of the other on the same bolt. That's if the SOHC one is similar to the OHV one. And I also noticed that the 2nd alternator is different then the primary alternator, I wonder if that's the case for the SOHC dual alt bracket. And I'm also curious if I could flip the alternator around the other way and have the pulley facing the rear of the engine bay because then I might not have to relocate the power steering reservoir although I'm pretty sure the trans cooling line that's connected to the top of the radiator would be in the way Does anybody know if alternators make voltage it both directions? They do right? And as a matter of fact the 2nd alternator looks like the same alternator that comes on the 01 cobra and I do have an extra one of those. jees that would be so nice to use its been sitting around for 5+ yrs and I could save myself some decent money. and I'm sure the amperage on it is pretty good too.

Dual Alt Bracket On 4.0 Ohv

• Devan
• January 28, 2018

Dual Alt Bracket Closeup On 4.0 Ohv

• Devan
• January 28, 2018
• 1

 

[CDW6212R]

Wiring for two alternators will be unique for being able to sense any problems. I don't know the solution, but to be able to sense an issue with one circuit, I'd research a lot to see if that can work with the OEM dash indicator etc. Each voltage regulator operates with assumption that it sees only one battery and no other alternator, so it assumes it is in charge(alters the voltage as needed). I'd consult with people who know alternators very well, and people who have experience with multiple alternators.

 

[Devan]

Just ordered my dual alt bracket but I'm gonna need a motor pretty soon. I wanna make it to at least 300,000 Ill be happy with that. I'm almost at 295,000 now but I'm gonna drive it till it dies whilst boostin lol.

JZ Secondary Lime Green Alt

• Devan
• February 3, 2018

JZ Triple Lime Green Alts

• Devan
• February 3, 2018