1 wire alternators

[66chevyII]

Read this by Mark Hamilton of Mad Electrical
http://www.madelectrical.com/electri...hreewire.shtml

[CDMBill]

This was an interesting read and I'll admit it reinforced the view I already re the benefit of using the exciter wire circuit as available in the Ford cars under discussion.

Is that a fair answer James?

[SuperBuickGuy]

I'm not a fan of one wire. I have one on the Buick, and the Chev pickup... the Buick, is easy enough to live with - the pickup, I'm mad at myself for being talked into it. Whenever I winch, whenever I'm at idle and the converter is powering the air compressor or welder I can tell when the batteries are starting to die because the generator simply can't keep up and loses its field. I suppose if I didn't notice, I could literally kill the motor if the batteries got low enough to drop the pin into the pump (the diesel uses a pin to block the fuel flow to shut the motor off that's held with a magnetic field).... so no, not a fan.

[BBR]

Read this by Mark Hamilton of Mad Electrical
http://www.madelectrical.com/electri...hreewire.shtml

Yes I read the the other day. Not being an electrical engineer, I assume he has some valid points. My normal thought process though is actual user input trumps theory 9 times out of 10. That's why I asked here.

The 3 wire may very well be technically 'better', but does that 'better' really translate to any end-user benefit? based on things I have read, I am having a hard time seeing that it does for normal passenger car applications.

I am just thinking of upgrading the alternator (Ford 1g) on the Mustang because I think it is dying or is simply under powered. I have no idea what it is out of or even what it's output is. I did drive the car for 45 minutes the other day in stop/go traffic and when I was ready to leave my destination, I had to jump start it. I thought it was just heat soak making it hard to start, but went out yesterday and tried to crank the car and the battery was too weak to turn it over. The battery was new in October of last year so I'm guessing the alternator is just not keeping up with the electric fan and electric fuel pump. I want to upgrade to at least 100 amps and thought a 1 wire would be a quick/easy/inexpensive way to do that (and subsequently eliminate some of that *wonderful* early 80's Ford wiring). I'm not worried about a GM part on my Ford, I just want something that works well.

[boxer3main]

I see anything 1 wire and wonder what the cheapskates did with the backside.

from choke on a carb, to alternator, to gauges stabbed into the block..
the one wire stuff has a risk. Maine is a lunatic with it. drain the battery in the car next to it charging your own.

diodes are young in comparison to 1 wire stuff..another thing to play with.(I just learned what to do with diodes)

I worked on old planes, I first learned of it. You can't just do whatever the heck you want and think the breeze is going to clean off the reaction everytime.

an indicator it is in fact cheapskate... they could do the one wire to a fuel pump, but somebody drew the line as they invented it...made it all 2 wire.

[CDMBill]

Yes I read the the other day. Not being an electrical engineer, I assume he has some valid points. My normal thought process though is actual user input trumps theory 9 times out of 10. That's why I asked here.

The 3 wire may very well be technically 'better', but does that 'better' really translate to any end-user benefit? based on things I have read, I am having a hard time seeing that it does for normal passenger car applications.

I am just thinking of upgrading the alternator (Ford 1g) on the Mustang because I think it is dying or is simply under powered. I have no idea what it is out of or even what it's output is. I did drive the car for 45 minutes the other day in stop/go traffic and when I was ready to leave my destination, I had to jump start it. I thought it was just heat soak making it hard to start, but went out yesterday and tried to crank the car and the battery was too weak to turn it over. The battery was new in October of last year so I'm guessing the alternator is just not keeping up with the electric fan and electric fuel pump. I want to upgrade to at least 100 amps and thought a 1 wire would be a quick/easy/inexpensive way to do that (and subsequently eliminate some of that *wonderful* early 80's Ford wiring). I'm not worried about a GM part on my Ford, I just want something that works well.

The practical aspect is the amount of output the alternator will have at idle or slow stop and go traffic on a hot day. What I saw with the first one wire I had was very low voltage at idle and say 1700 -2000 RPM. I had similar starting issues after a similar drive to what you described. A smaller pulley helped and fortunatly the Powermaster unit was set up so that a (second) exciter wire could be connected by pulling off the small rubber plug on the back of their 130 amp alternator.

Never the less after running through the load calculations, (MSD used to have a cheat sheet on their web site, I'm sure others do too) I saw the overall load was more than 130 amps so that was when I bought the MSD unit. As previouosly posted it worked perfectly unitl DW 11 when it just died at the same time I tossed the alternator belt. I don't know which happened first but it still spun, so it didn't freeze up.

So after reading about the output levels of the PowerMaster units, they send a card that shows what your particular unit did on their test bench, I bought the 200 Amp unit. I know it sounds excessive but with the exciter wire its rated to output 140 amps at the speed my car idles at with 2.8 pulley ratio. This just covers the fans, pumps, ignition etc. So now driving around I see 14-14.2 consistently on the voltmeter guage and which is backed up by the datalogs. No starting issues after driving at WOT for the road course and the drag slalom or a bunch of start-ups and shut-offs testing the cooling system.

Your needs and results may vary.

[Teddyzee]

I don't have any insight into your question, but I'm using a 130amp 3g alternator that was intended for an early/mid 90's Taurus.
This is on the Ranger. It fit the stock Mustang bracket, and I got a good deal on it- someone purchased it new and sold the car, that sort of thing.

[BBR]

Bill, you kick ass.

[BBR]

I pulled the alternator out of the Mustang in preparation of swapping water pumps and the only identifying mark on it was "Autolite" cast into the back. I have no idea what it's out of or it's output, but it looks pretty darn old. I almost had forgotten Autolite even made alternators.

[milner351]

BBR - if you have a "clamp on" inductive ammeter - you can test directly what the output of the alternator is at different rpm with different loads on, then make a purchase decision from there.

Summit used to sell alternator kits - I got one when I put an MSD and unilite in my '70 mach1 years ago, I haven't seen them for sale in a long time but I haven't looked for them specifically. You might be able to upgrade yours without having to change wiring and bracket/pulley set ups.

Found this after some quick googling:

http://www.aspwholesale.com/index.ph...wCat&catId=652