I've going to rebuild my present CS130. I have already purchased the upgrade kit. It will boost it up to 120 amps. Do I have to upgrade the battery cable ? Or is the present one OK. My car is stock and the reason for the upgrade is this is my second alternator. I get the occasional sys light ( the battery is fairly new ) my instrument panel fluctuates when the lights are turned on, you turn on the AC. Everything seems fine when the car is cold and the alt. is running at full charge. When it warms and the voltage drops the symptoms occur. Any thoughts ?

 

ttt

 

I bought a 200amp alternator a few weeks ago since the stereo keeps burning the 105. I was told to upgrade the main power lead to a 4ga for "best performance". One of my friends also has the same alt and he's still on factory wire. A 120 is awful small for an upgrade, i doubt you will have any issues. I could have swore reading something on the net about using lt1 alternators in the l98 cars, they are a better design. Anyone else know about this?

 

Thanks Racebum for stepping up. The ZR-1 Alt. CS144 is only 120 amps. But its almost 300 bucks. The rebuild kit is only 100. Will give it a try.

 

Just out of curiosity, is your Vette a daily driver???

Sometimes I think the battery drains, and the Alternator ends up doing double duty. Charging the battery, and running all the electronics. Add to this the summer heat (not an issue now, but over time) and you can eat up an alternator pretty fast.

Since mine is not a DD, I use the battery tender plus, and the battery is always fully charged. I have not needed any alternator's, however mine is a 96 and may have a different alternator.

Also this this is just my own crazy theory, and I am not a mecahnic. However in my 1st c4, I did go thru a battery and an alternator.

Without regard to my ramblings, the upgrade is a good idea

 

Its now my DD. My son got my little truck for his birthday. So now I work on it to keep it going. I do play with it alot. I do disconnect the neg. side of the battery alot. (I think the FSM wants you to do this if you're replacing weather stripping ) So I don't think the battery gets to a full charge like it should. The battery charger I got is a piece of junk, it only works on the jump cycle. I will throw a charge on it when I rebuild the Alt.

 

Stock battery cables are plenty. When warm, what RPM is your idle?

Also, you don't happen to have an alternator underdrive pulley on there do you? This will cause your alt to spin too slow.

 

I got a new no exchange alternator from Motor City for $85 with a lifetime warranty. $100 for a rebuild kit is outrageous IMO!

 

Sometimes I think the battery drains, and the Alternator ends up doing double duty. Charging the battery, and running all the electronics. Add to this the summer heat (not an issue now, but over time) and you can eat up an alternator pretty fast.

 

My .02 cents worth, I have the best luck on battery by using a charger with a low amp trickle at 2 amps over several hours. A modern type alt. will not fully charge a low battery without many hours of high RPM running. Someday I have got to get me a battery tender! Good luck

Joel

 

After blowing up my cs130 a few times, this is what I bought:

http://www.alternatorparts.com/CS-144_Special_offer.htm

I took 140A version

 

The rebuild kit for the CS130 was 49.00. I guess the new stator and regulator makes the 120amp starter more expensive. I did some research and didn't find many rebuild kits, very limited resources. There may be cheaper ones out there, but after a few hours on the computer, I'm ready to get anyone ordered. If it works the 100 bucks will be worth it, if it doesn't well I have a better alternator.

 

Warm, it idles about 725 rpm. What's an underdrive pulley consist of ? The alternator is a stock shop replacement job. Ac/Delco brand. I didn't touch this because when it went out and I was stranded the tow company took it to the shop and they did the work. I picked it up after work and didn't ask any questions. ( I was younger and dumber than )

 

I don't know what upgrade kit you purchased, but I don't know of many that will send your idle or low rpm output above what it is right now. Most of the kits I've seen don't approach max output until somewhere around 1500 rpms, so unless you've got the pedal down at a stoplight, it's still putting out the puny 25 to 30 amps your old one was. That means that with both fans cranking, the a/c on high and an 18 year old wiring harness (and the resistance that's built up in the harness may be a bigger problem than you think), you've exceeded the output of the alternator and it's on battery. Sit there long enough and things start getting a little weak. GM has never made any big secret of this. In fact they issued a Bulletin pretty much thrashing any Dealer who dared to replace an alternator under warranty just because the headlights got a little dim with an extended idle. Nor has it been a big secret that the L98's positioning of the alternator - close to the header - makes it an alternator eater. Vette magazine was writing about it back in '91 and though they had a suggestion or two, the one that has stuck was to carry a spare. Anyway, the best place I know of for more info and better low rpm output is www.alternatorparts.com which has been mentioned on this site for as long as I've been around. I also remember a member installing the "Iceberg" kit on his alternator and promptly frying it within a couple of hundred miles.

 

Simply a different diameter pulley that changes the speed at which your accessories turn. It comes in popular under drive kits which consist of at least an under drive crank pulley that replaces your stock piece. Some of these come with an under drive pulley to replace your stock alt pulley.

The idea is that it allows the engine to direct more power to the wheels. Just don't use the alt pulley. Reducing your alt speed causes more problems that it's worth. Crank pulley is fine. Different size serp belt is needed.

 

I got the stock crank pulley. UPDATE !! The rebuild kit is the Iceberg 140 Amp upgrade not a 120 as I was thinking. It was real late when I ordered it. Now I will definitely look into a larger battery cable. (#4 recommended) It also recommends grounding the alt to the battery. Is my Alt considered a 1,2 or 3 wire setup ? And how is the present Alt. grounded ? Thanks guys for the help so far, sorry for the misinformation.

 

You could do the 4ga if you wanted to be optimum but i still haven't had any issues with a 200amp unit. Like you pointed out earlier, the zr1 is 120a and uses the same wire i believe. Going to 140a is not too big of a jump. The wire will take you a bit to track down, worst of all 4ga is big and clunky, you will have a hard time hiding it.

 

I read on a website that you can leave your present cable there and just run a secondary along side it. But if you do that (since electricity will take the path of least resistance) you might as well install the single 4ga cable for appearance reasons.

 

current divides in a parallel circuit...for the most part divide the current output of the alt by the number of ''output wires" and that would be the amount of current flowing through each wire. (there are some variables but, none that would be that noteworthy to publish).

 

www.motorcityreman.com has a recommendation on wire/cable gauge for upgraded alternators. BTW if you change, err on the large side. I put a 3 pulley March power and amp set on my 1989 last summer replacing the alternator with a stock output unit. I have had ZERO problems and it gets hot in Arkansas. The March set includes an overdrive (smaller) pulley for the alternator and mine puts out 14.7 volts.
I believe most alternator problems come from abuse by using them to charge a weak battery. When I took off my alternator last year it was the original, and was still working, but the output was dropping a little so I replaced it. I kept it as a spare.