Alternator wire size?

[Lenie]

Battery is in trunk and not holding a charge and alternator is charging a bit low. Was reading wire size should be larger if running to the trunk, I'm running quite a few accessories including a large stereo. Installing a flaming river big kill switch. Does anyone know what the correct wire size back to the kill switch in the trunk should be? I believe I need to change mine out.
Thanks

[Sieg]

Lenie,

What size of wire are you currently running?

Here's a simple chart:

[FETorino]

That looks like a pretty good chart there Sieg.

4ga should get er done in most any situation. PA performance sells a lot of Alternators and no mater what AMP alt or where you run the battery they recommend 4GA.

I don't know about your alt but as reference a 160 amp 3g puts out 80 amps just above idle with 160 amps max.

Part of this equation is how many amps is your alt putting out?

Also are you running a full length ground cable or do you have a good ground strap from the engine to the frame and body where you are running ground to?

[72Z/28]

Originally Posted by Lenie

Battery is in trunk and not holding a charge and alternator is charging a bit low. Was reading wire size should be larger if running to the trunk, I'm running quite a few accessories including a large stereo. Installing a flaming river big kill switch. Does anyone know what the correct wire size back to the kill switch in the trunk should be? I believe I need to change mine out.
Thanks

also check your alternator wiring. The wiring will be different if the alternator is controlled through your ECM.

I had the same issue with the low charge,I had to connect the sensing wire from the alternator pigtail to the battery port on the back of the alternator

[Lenie]

Thanks guys, good chart. I'll check my alt size again. Got it from frank a few years back with March system. It's a one wire and I asked for the bigger one but never really checked, lazy. Man, I'm running out of room in my wire trays in the car, starting to look like sardines in there. I am grounded from motor to frame, head to radiator support and battery in car to rear four link cups. I will tell you, I am an electricity Dummy!

[Musclerodz]

Battery in trunk I run at least 2 guage wire to the front with a firewall bulkhead or up to starter, alternator wire needs to be at least a 6 or 8 from bulkhead or starter to alternator. If runnning a big amp alternator you may need to jump to a 4. Also check your engine to chassis ground as well.

[Lenie]

Originally Posted by Musclerodz

Battery in trunk I run at least 2 guage wire to the front with a firewall bulkhead or up to starter, alternator wire needs to be at least a 6 or 8 from bulkhead or starter to alternator. If runnning a big amp alternator you may need to jump to a 4. Also check your engine to chassis ground as well.

Thanks Mike, yeah that's probably my problem after taking a closer look my wiring is just to small. Going to be a pain in the arse. Looks like I'll be putting the car back on cribbing. What firewall connectors do you use? Diagram? UUUuGGGGGGggg.

[Musclerodz]

american autowire 500009, this way I don't have a bunch of connectors on the starter, and makes it easy to hook up battery power to needed circuits right under dash.

[carbuff]

Those are similar to if not the same as what we used on TOW also. We actually used 2 sets of them: one at the firewall/tunnel to go into the engine bay, and a second set to go through the inner quarterpanel in front of the wheel well. That way we had a clean connection point for the wires to go through to the trunk.

[Lenie]

Originally Posted by Musclerodz

american autowire 500009, this way I don't have a bunch of connectors on the starter, and makes it easy to hook up battery power to needed circuits right under dash.

Originally Posted by carbuff

Those are similar to if not the same as what we used on TOW also. We actually used 2 sets of them: one at the firewall/tunnel to go into the engine bay, and a second set to go through the inner quarterpanel in front of the wheel well. That way we had a clean connection point for the wires to go through to the trunk.

Thanks