I will soon be ordering a pulley kit from March Performance for my 455, so I need to choose my alternator. My car will not have A/C, but will have twin electric fans (15 amp draw) and a "nothing fancy" stock appearing 4 speaker stereo system. I don't foresee any other power draining add-ons.

Because I am going with the aftermarket pulley system, I would like to get a chrome alternator and power steering pump. I am looking at the Summit website and see that their are a variety of amperage and manufacturers. There are Summit brand, Powermaster, and Proform and they come in 63, 80, 100, and 140 amps.

Any recommendations on amperage and manufacturer?

Regards,

Poser

100

Isn't that kinda large ?

Especially w/out all the electronics the new cars that use 100 amp alt's have.

Electric fans.

One other electrical component that I forget is the fuel pump (7.5 amps).

After doing a little research today, I have 1 more question. CS or IS style? If I understood what I was reading, the CS-130 is the newer style alt. Any advantage of going with the CS vs. IS?

Thanks,

Poser

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

go for the 10si or 12si, plus kit. Read the whole site.

The CS is a 1 wire. You can make the SI a 1 wire easily if you wish. Just plug #1 to the Batt terminal. Same. #2 stays loose.
edit: i think if you plug #1 to #2 it might do the same, but not sure.

A one wire alt. means if you start and idle without revving, no charging. ...that and the battery light issue.

------------
scott/ http://www.pleasurizer.com/2006/07/we_dont_need_no_stinkin_wires.html
car 541

So this would be a good option...?

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=PWM%2D17294&N=115&autoview=sku



..Planning on ordering tomorrow.

Thanks for the help,

Poser

get a 10SI (or 12SI, higher output), it has an internal regulator. To make it work all you have to do is: At the regulator, jump terminal f to 4 and 2 to 3.

At the alternator use the wire that went to "F" and plug it into terminal 1. The wire that went to "R", plug into terminal 2. That's it. You will still have the idiot lite, regulation at the battery, where it belongs, and no more mechanical regulator issues. For replacement, get a 10SI from anywhere. \

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/goodbird67/ALTchange0003.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/goodbird67/ALTchange0002.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/goodbird67/ALTchange0001.jpg

This is how I changed to the SI. You can get a adapter cable to go from alt to existing plug in harness. ( I am waiting to ge one myself.)

PS. I think the SE is used for cars with overdrive something about low RPM's at cruise.

Jim G. 67 conv 400

This was how I did mine:

http://www.groupwhere.org/firebird/altconvdssi.php

The end result is that you don't have to cut wires, and you still have a stock-looking regulator connection.

Not being a big electrical guy, the reason that the 55 amp voltage regulator sparked a comment from me, the only guidiance I can offer is that my conversion was done following a hot rod/car craft how-to published in the mid 80's.

I don't know how much difference there is betwen the 7 and 9, but my installation is down to 2 wires, the wires running under the mechanical temp sending unit. I wish to could get a better shot, but beteween the rad hose and my lousy flash mode on my ditital, it was hard to take a decent picture.

I origionally had it wired with a wire splice. However, when I redid the car in 87, I modified it. I don't remember what, but after carefully studying the configuration, I found that if I upgraded one wire that comes out of the gang connector of the firewall, I could eliminate a wireing mess, and I still have a functioning idot light.

Before you go making changes, you might want to verify it with a knowledgable source. I think one of those wires coming out of the alternator can be eliminated by ganging it up on the main feed. There is a red wire and a blue wire coming out of the side of the alternator. The blue wire is the car's origional black/red stripe wire, and the red wire attaches to the output lead



I cannot advise on ganging the one lead to the alternator. All that I can recall from the how-to article is that the alternator output supplies whatever electical function for the other wire coming out of the side. Therefore, this wire, wherever it originates from, can be eliminated. The ganged wire has been like that for 23 years, and the wire upgrade has been almost 20 years. Unlike the voltage regulator days, I have never had any issues.

The reason I replaced the well working alternator after 23 years is that the alternator's piviot hole had wallowed out. I guess that the 23 years of abusive torque takes its toll on aluminun, and I noticed that the replacment alternator has a steel sleeve inside of the piviot hole.

As with the upgrade kit: Something tells me that the upgrade kit is merely a $30 brainchild from a clever engineer to "eliminate wires," and bussing the one wire to the alternator output accomplishes the same thing as the kit.

Thanks guys, I just ordered the 10si 100 amp chrome alternator, and the March serpentine pulley kit with chrome power steering pump that looks like this:



I'll take a pic when they come and I get them installed.

Poser

Looks clean.
Any of you oldtimers remember working on cars when they all had regular belts and these serpentine belts started coming out on the new cars? Any thoughts?

Funny uoy should ask...
I was just a kid at the time, but Dayco has a plant here in Springfield and when they were developing the serpentine configurations and such, Pop's shop worked with them on some models.
It is amazing the grip they have to offer. We have had a couple of cars through here that had A/C compressors that had locked up and the belt would hold tight enough to prevent the engine from cranking. At first it would seem as though the engine had completely locked up. Amazing, but true.

Interesting...
For me it was one of the things that were a pain in the neck. A long list of things that came down the pike. You get used to points, v-8's and carbs and whammo, let's get a little more complicated. First was the HEI. Not real hard to fathom but when you first attempted a quick fix it bogged you down. Then the cursed front wheel drive. Bad axels, bad racks, can't get at the trans..... And then the computer, oh man what a goat rope that was at first. Where is it? I don't see it. Jump starting fried them. No junk yards had used ones... Here comes the serpentine belt. One belt going around everything. Those tensioners, here comes trial and error again.... I still hate em. They may be superior but give me a v-belt set-up any day. No wonder I'm stuck working on these dinosaurs.

Call me crazy, but I am sensing a "fear of change" here. As for computers, I actually work for the worlds largest software/hardware manufacturer...so I guess we are just polar opposites!

I actually used a similar serpentine setup for a Ferd 302 a few years ago and it worked great and looked great, so I figured I would go this route again.

Poser

Fear of change? More like, "steam rolled by change." When I'm at work I'm responcible for keeping hundreds of computer controlled machines running. Machines from the fifties that have had computer controls added to them. Kind of like your first gen Bird with a serpentine, computer, laser guidance system, radar, plasma screen, microwave... The engineers have no bounds with improvements. They ask me to add a laser hole checker and give me a piece of thin gage sheet metal bracket and a few screws and say, "Add the laser". Later that day, "Hey, the hole checker isn't on location." I say,"No snit, somebody bumped it?"