Yes, another 1 Wire alternator thread

[PoFokRacing]

I have researched a BUNCH of threads about converting my car from the stock external alternator to a 1 wire, internal alternator and watched the videos from @72RoadrunnerGTX as well as the wiring diagrams, slides, discussions, banter, etc. in this forum and others. I am more so asking for validation or the dreaded "What are you smoking" blasts on what I am considering.

The goal of this car is to keep as much of the factory wiring, etc. in the car since it is for sale, in case someone wants to take it back to stock, but since I mostly race it, I don't want to burn up what I have got here already. I am posting to see if the attached wiring plan makes sense and whether or not someone may see a potential issue with this that I can address now rather than cleaning up a smoldering mess later.

My Challenge: I am running an electric fuel pump, electric transmission cooler, electric water pump, electric fans (2 x Afco puller w/shroud), Racepack datalogger dash, MSD 6AL Digital ignition, Dedenbear autoshifter and solenoid) directly from the battery and I seem to keep toasting the Napa 95amp alternators and in doing so toasting my Optima Yellow top batteries with frying a diode and introducing AC Ripple. (Yes, I am moving to red top). I am currently feeding my fans, pump, aftermarket LED headlights, etc. directly from the battery vs. from the alternator side of the circuit. (Head nod to @72RoadrunnerGTX and others for pointing out my GM (oh dear God) based mistakes)

What I Do Different: The biggest difference between a normal street/strip rod and I is that we have a short cooldown period between rounds so what I have been doing is connecting a battery charger to the battery, applying external fans (110v carpet dryer fans) to the radiator, then turning on my water pump and radiator fans between rounds. I can cool the car from 195 to 90 degrees in 20 minutes doing this. Sounds simple right... BUT... doing so seems to cook at least one of the diodes in the Napa 3 wire alternator (stock external regulated alternator) and therefore introducing excessive AC Ripple which is killing cells in my Optima battery!

What I Have Already Changed: I removed the factory dash cluster and directly bypassed the Dash Ammeter. Beyond that, the fans and water pump are controlled by a logical relay pack (should create a thread about this one) but those are powered directly off the battery through their relay packs. Fuel pump & trans cooler get their power from the battery. (Yes, I did not see the previous posts about sourcing this from the alternator until now!!!)

My Proposed Solution: I am considering going to a 1-wire or internally regulated Powermaster (or similar) 165amp alternator and changing how I am feeding various components. For those components that I need on during startup (MSD Switched Batt+, Racepack, Ignition switch signal to starter relay) I am going to use the Batt Bus Feed coming from Splice 1 under the dash via a fuse block so each component is fused. For those components used after engine start, I am going to use a direct connection to a fuse block from the Alternator output. To avoid any potential of frying pin 16 or 18 in the bulkhead Packard Terminals, I am also going to do a direct fused (150amp) connection from the alternator back to the battery. As well, I am going to put a 30amp fuse between pin 16 and the wire to the starter relay. This way if for some reason the 6 gauge wire between the alternator and the battery fails, I am not sending all of that current (amperage) across pins 16 or 18 of the Packard Terminal at the bulkhead. If for some reason, the fusible link at the starter relay fails, I won't melt the car down from the dash out to the pretty vinyl wrap.

My Request: Please take a look at the proposed wiring diagram and let me know if I should change anything. If you feel I am smoking the wrong kind of crack, please point me to a better dealer. If you think I am on the right track, I would greatly appreciate knowing that as well! I am just sick and tired of getting called up for the next round and finding out I have fried my battery (again) and the car won't start without some help.

 

[dvw]

I had issues last year with my Power Master frying the internal regulator. 3 times. They kept telling me it was a bad ground to the case. I voltage drop tested it more than once and never saw over about .5 volt under load. The starter and the alternator shared a common feed from the battery. The 2 fans, accumulator, and headlamps (seldom used) all picked up there power from the alternator power stud. Made 2 changes. Not 100% sure which one fixed it. Went to a different style internal regulator. It had an adjustable voltage output regulator. These seemed to be on a huge back rder for months. That concerned me as to why? The second thing was to seperate the alternator output feed to the battery. It is now a dedicated single circuit. Had concerns if there was a flyback voltage spike to the alternator when shutting the fans down as they started at the alternator output stud. Have over 100 passes this year with zero issue. So if it was me? The alternator output woulld go directly to the battery (or in my case the kill switch then the battery). My kill switch is 4 pole. The smaller terminals are dedicated to the the MSD box. When the switch is opened the is no power to the MSD killing the motor. The fans used are off a late model Charger. They draw about 30 amps. Only one is used except for cool down. It can be cooled to 120 degrees in less than 5 minutes. Made the last 3 runs at Norwalk friday night in 62 minutes.
Doug

 

[72RoadrunnerGTX]

I have researched a BUNCH of threads about converting my car from the stock external alternator to a 1 wire, internal alternator and watched the videos from @72RoadrunnerGTX as well as the wiring diagrams, slides, discussions, banter, etc. in this forum and others. I am more so asking for validation or the dreaded "What are you smoking" blasts on what I am considering.

The goal of this car is to keep as much of the factory wiring, etc. in the car since it is for sale, in case someone wants to take it back to stock, but since I mostly race it, I don't want to burn up what I have got here already. I am posting to see if the attached wiring plan makes sense and whether or not someone may see a potential issue with this that I can address now rather than cleaning up a smoldering mess later.

My Challenge: I am running an electric fuel pump, electric transmission cooler, electric water pump, electric fans (2 x Afco puller w/shroud), Racepack datalogger dash, MSD 6AL Digital ignition, Dedenbear autoshifter and solenoid) directly from the battery and I seem to keep toasting the Napa 95amp alternators and in doing so toasting my Optima Yellow top batteries with frying a diode and introducing AC Ripple. (Yes, I am moving to red top). I am currently feeding my fans, pump, aftermarket LED headlights, etc. directly from the battery vs. from the alternator side of the circuit. (Head nod to @72RoadrunnerGTX and others for pointing out my GM (oh dear God) based mistakes)

What I Do Different: The biggest difference between a normal street/strip rod and I is that we have a short cooldown period between rounds so what I have been doing is connecting a battery charger to the battery, applying external fans (110v carpet dryer fans) to the radiator, then turning on my water pump and radiator fans between rounds. I can cool the car from 195 to 90 degrees in 20 minutes doing this. Sounds simple right... BUT... doing so seems to cook at least one of the diodes in the Napa 3 wire alternator (stock external regulated alternator) and therefore introducing excessive AC Ripple which is killing cells in my Optima battery!

What I Have Already Changed: I removed the factory dash cluster and directly bypassed the Dash Ammeter. Beyond that, the fans and water pump are controlled by a logical relay pack (should create a thread about this one) but those are powered directly off the battery through their relay packs. Fuel pump & trans cooler get their power from the battery. (Yes, I did not see the previous posts about sourcing this from the alternator until now!!!)

My Proposed Solution: I am considering going to a 1-wire or internally regulated Powermaster (or similar) 165amp alternator and changing how I am feeding various components. For those components that I need on during startup (MSD Switched Batt+, Racepack, Ignition switch signal to starter relay) I am going to use the Batt Bus Feed coming from Splice 1 under the dash via a fuse block so each component is fused. For those components used after engine start, I am going to use a direct connection to a fuse block from the Alternator output. To avoid any potential of frying pin 16 or 18 in the bulkhead Packard Terminals, I am also going to do a direct fused (150amp) connection from the alternator back to the battery. As well, I am going to put a 30amp fuse between pin 16 and the wire to the starter relay. This way if for some reason the 6 gauge wire between the alternator and the battery fails, I am not sending all of that current (amperage) across pins 16 or 18 of the Packard Terminal at the bulkhead. If for some reason, the fusible link at the starter relay fails, I won't melt the car down from the dash out to the pretty vinyl wrap.

My Request: Please take a look at the proposed wiring diagram and let me know if I should change anything. If you feel I am smoking the wrong kind of crack, please point me to a better dealer. If you think I am on the right track, I would greatly appreciate knowing that as well! I am just sick and tired of getting called up for the next round and finding out I have fried my battery (again) and the car won't start without some help.

What jumps out at me is the “shunt wire” bypass, paralleled/defeated circuit protection for the stock under dash wiring. Should a short occur in the stock unfused wring or components fed by this wiring, it will allow close to 200 amps to flow from the battery before any circuit protection reacts.

Understand you want to keep the original dash harness intact for a possible future restoration back to stock, I would suggest these alterations to ensure full circuit protection. Includes splitting the stockish vehicle loads across both original charge path bulkhead Packard terminals to reduce total current load on a single connection, while not altering the dash harness.

 

[gkent]

Don't waste your time reading BS on Facebook and "opinions" by so-called experts. Read this:

Catalog

 

[6PKRTSE]

I had issues last year with my Power Master frying the internal regulator. 3 times. They kept telling me it was a bad ground to the case. I voltage drop tested it more than once and never saw over about .5 volt under load. The starter and the alternator shared a common feed from the battery. The 2 fans, accumulator, and headlamps (seldom used) all picked up there power from the alternator power stud. Made 2 changes. Not 100% sure which one fixed it. Went to a different style internal regulator. It had an adjustable voltage output regulator. These seemed to be on a huge back rder for months. That concerned me as to why? The second thing was to seperate the alternator output feed to the battery. It is now a dedicated single circuit. Had concerns if there was a flyback voltage spike to the alternator when shutting the fans down as they started at the alternator output stud. Have over 100 passes this year with zero issue. So if it was me? The alternator output woulld go directly to the battery (or in my case the kill switch then the battery). My kill switch is 4 pole. The smaller terminals are dedicated to the the MSD box. When the switch is opened the is no power to the MSD killing the motor. The fans used are off a late model Charger. They draw about 30 amps. Only one is used except for cool down. It can be cooled to 120 degrees in less than 5 minutes. Made the last 3 runs at Norwalk friday night in 62 minutes.
Doug

We have had dozens and dozens of issues with Powermaster alternators and starters every year. It is almost never their fault. It is always consumers/installers fault. I have heard everything from them from too much draw, bad ground, to they determined that an engine must have back fired taking out the starter by try to turn it backwards.

 

[65CopCar]

Had concerns if there was a flyback voltage spike to the alternator when shutting the fans down as they started at the alternator output stud. H
Doug

I have concerns with that also and that is why all my heavy inductive loads like a fan get a free wheeling diode across them.

 

[PoFokRacing]

What jumps out at me is the “shunt wire” bypass, paralleled/defeated circuit protection for the stock under dash wiring. Should a short occur in the stock unfused wring or components fed by this wiring, it will allow close to 200 amps to flow from the battery before any circuit protection reacts.
View attachment 1921923
Understand you want to keep the original dash harness intact for a possible future restoration back to stock, I would suggest these alterations to ensure full circuit protection. Includes splitting the stockish vehicle loads across both original charge path bulkhead Packard terminals to reduce total current load on a single connection, while not altering the dash harness.
View attachment 1921924

AWESOME!!!!! That is exactly the sanity check I was hoping for!!!! I am assuming a fusible link is faster reacting than a fuse and if that is the case, I am all for it because like I said, I want to retain the original wiring just in case whomever buys the car wants to take it back to stock it is there. Thank you VERY much for the updated drawing and the sanity check!!!

 

[72RoadrunnerGTX]

AWESOME!!!!! That is exactly the sanity check I was hoping for!!!! I am assuming a fusible link is faster reacting than a fuse and if that is the case, I am all for it because like I said, I want to retain the original wiring just in case whomever buys the car wants to take it back to stock it is there. Thank you VERY much for the updated drawing and the sanity check!!!

Actually, fusible links react slower than fuses or circuit breakers typically, can absorb the occasional current spike without tripping. When sized appropriately, they tend to be more reliable than fuses in this application. A failed/blown fuse, or tripped circuit breaker, on the power supply to the dash harness/ignition switch means an engine stall while running and/or a dead in water condition. There is reason they were used there originally and not fuses.

 

[Nacho-RT74]

On a side note…

1 wire alt is not an automatically a high output alt. One stuff is how it works (how fields are sourced) and the other is its output performance.

Ppl tends to associate 1 wire alts as a high performance alt automatically which is not necessarily like that.

You can get a stock system alt (dual or single field, depending on year) being still high performance alt. There are options. I mean, if you care of course.

 

[PoFokRacing]

Don't waste your time reading BS on Facebook and "opinions" by so-called experts. Read this:

http://[URL]http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/onewire-threewire.shtml

[/URL]

Thank you for reminding me to spend more time digging deeper into this. If anyone has any questions or needs a deeper dive this is an incredible resource of knowledge. Hence the late reply to your post as I have spent the last few days diving into this. And yes, I take Farcebook experts at face value! (Most make great entertainment for sure!)

 

[PoFokRacing]

On a side note…

1 wire alt is not an automatically a high output alt. One stuff is how it works (how fields are sourced) and the other is its output performance.

Ppl tends to associate 1 wire alts as a high performance alt automatically which is not necessarily like that.

You can get a stock system alt (dual or single field, depending on year) being still high performance alt. There are options. I mean, if you care of course.

I agree. Where I have found issues is that stock (local auto parts store) alternators don't seem to survive at high RPMs (6,500 engine RPM w/stock pulleys) for some reason. I have also found that even their 'high output' alternators at 95amps work great for a street/strip application where the engine is running for some time, in a pure strip application where it is a short drive to staging, shut down, fire up and make your pass, and make the short drive back to the pits with everything running (radiator and trans cooler fans, water and high flow fuel pumps, lights, MSD, auto shifter, racepak, and everything else) it just doesn't have time to catch up and get everything back to full running voltage. Plus if your battery charger in the pits is questionable it just compounds the issue. I took the car to the shop that has a testing system like MAD shows along with a Snap-On analyzer and found that the stock 95amp alternator just was not cutting it. Alone with minimal load (MSD, fuel pump, and racepak) it was able to keep up.

 

[PoFokRacing]

I had issues last year with my Power Master frying the internal regulator. 3 times. They kept telling me it was a bad ground to the case. I voltage drop tested it more than once and never saw over about .5 volt under load. The starter and the alternator shared a common feed from the battery. The 2 fans, accumulator, and headlamps (seldom used) all picked up there power from the alternator power stud. Made 2 changes. Not 100% sure which one fixed it. Went to a different style internal regulator. It had an adjustable voltage output regulator. These seemed to be on a huge back rder for months. That concerned me as to why? The second thing was to seperate the alternator output feed to the battery. It is now a dedicated single circuit. Had concerns if there was a flyback voltage spike to the alternator when shutting the fans down as they started at the alternator output stud. Have over 100 passes this year with zero issue. So if it was me? The alternator output woulld go directly to the battery (or in my case the kill switch then the battery). My kill switch is 4 pole. The smaller terminals are dedicated to the the MSD box. When the switch is opened the is no power to the MSD killing the motor. The fans used are off a late model Charger. They draw about 30 amps. Only one is used except for cool down. It can be cooled to 120 degrees in less than 5 minutes. Made the last 3 runs at Norwalk friday night in 62 minutes.
Doug

Thank you for this insight. So my question is going to be, you said you separated the feed for your fans, etc. from the feed from the alternator. Where are your fans now getting their power feed from? I am just trying to work through where I am going to pickup the power for the fans, pumps, headlights, autoshifter, etc. if I am not going to pick them up from the alternator feed lug. Should I pick up that power from the battery direct (distribution block off the battery) or where else would I do this to avoid the internal regulator fry issue? I don't have a battery shut off switch since I have not relocated the battery (yet) and I am only in the 10s on pump gas so I am not required to have a kill switch. (Yes, I know I should but drilling a hole in the bumper or the rear of the car is a painful thought right now)

 

[451Mopar]

I just started to video a wiring "bypass" method that is simple and you don't have to hack the harness or mess with the wires under the dash, but there are multiple parts to the approach.
The first change is to remove both the fusible link and ammeter wire from the bulkhead connector, and make a new fusible link (still 16 AWG) that connects both of the bulkhead connectors together. This protects all the dash wiring, brings in power through both bulkhead connectors sharing the current load, and is in parallel with the Ammeter, which will make the ammeter not register as no charge from the alternator is going into the dash.
The second part is getting the alternator power to the battery. With a lower output alternator, and for wiring simplicity, I am connecting another 16 awg fusible link to the removed end of the alternator connection from the bulkhead connector. on my '69 Coronet, the 12 awg alternator wire also provides power to the horn relay so this simple change fixes this issue and with a stock alternator no other change is needed. For a high output alternator you need a larger alternator battery wire, but could be added in parallel to the modified alternator output wire* This will make the added fusible link to the original alternator output wire ignored so really if going with the larger charge wire I would disconnect the original alternator output wire from the alternator and insulate the terminal connector, but leave the fused wire to still power the horn relay.
The somewhat obvious third part is that now the dash harness is limited to only the amount of power that can flow through the 16 AWG fusible link, then the large current loads need to be removed from the dash wiring harness by using a power distribution unit or fused relays.
On a near stock car, usually the headlights are a big current draw so powering them through relays is simple.
On a car with alot of power hungry accessories like cooling fans, electric fuel pump, and such the wiring is a but cleaner using a PDU box that houses multiple relays and fuses.
There is also a forth part that I am working on for taking the ignition circuit through a relay, but adding an ignition key de-bouncing approach to help with EFI conversions where the ignition switch might have short intermittent drop outs.

 

[dvw]

Thank you for this insight. So my question is going to be, you said you separated the feed for your fans, etc. from the feed from the alternator. Where are your fans now getting their power feed from? I am just trying to work through where I am going to pickup the power for the fans, pumps, headlights, autoshifter, etc. if I am not going to pick them up from the alternator feed lug. Should I pick up that power from the battery direct (distribution block off the battery) or where else would I do this to avoid the internal regulator fry issue? I don't have a battery shut off switch since I have not relocated the battery (yet) and I am only in the 10s on pump gas so I am not required to have a kill switch. (Yes, I know I should but drilling a hole in the bumper or the rear of the car is a painful thought right now)

The battery acts as a capacitor or damper for spikes. Run the alternator output to the battery. Then you can pick up your feeds on any substantial feed location. I would use a #8 in place of #10 from the battery to your pick up point. Place the pick up point where it is in a conveinent location. If using most of the factory wiring the firewall relay is a good start. So simply: #4 from alternator directly to the battery. #8 feeds the firewall starter relay. Removing the spade connectors in the bulkhead for the main dash power feed works well. Of the two ampmeter wires in the dash. The black that came from the alternator feeds numerous items. This is the circuit that now needs to be fed from your starter relay thru the bulkhead. So in essence you connect the feed from the starter relay to the location of the orginal alternator wire feed location in the bulkhead. Drill a hole so that a solid 10 gauge wire will slip thru. Make it long enough under the dash so if the bulkhead eeds to come apart the wire will just pull ball from under the dash. If necesary you could cut and resplice it if repair was needed. I see no reason to keep the feed for the opposite side of the ampmeter as it no longer functions. You could leave the dash side but remove the original from the engine compartment.
Doug