little help with my alt please

[Freshman6969]

another question for you...lol

do you think id see more preformance from running the back batts straight off the alt, or off the front batt? i have it now as, alt-front batt, alt-back batts, - off the front batt to the neg on the back batts, so 1 run pos off the alt, 1 run neg. off the front batt, and a ground in the back too

havent had the chance yet to pull the alt out and check the ground, ill be doing this within the next day or two

Edited December 22, 2011 by Freshman6969

[matt@mechman]

The reason why we supply a copper lug with the properly sized hole with every alternator we sell, is because most people try to use a flimsy gold plated car audio ring terminal with a standard 3/8" diameter hole. When the hole in the lug is much larger than the diameter of the alternator stud, it dramatically takes away from the surface area contact on the output stud of the alternator. This creates a hot spot on the stud, and in some cases can actually melt the copper stud right off the alternator.

This is also why Ohio Generator claims that you cannot run a zero gauge cable on their alternators. They use only a 6mm stud, which is tiny in comparison to a 3/8" holes, so subsequently they have a lot of output studs melt off. If you actually find a proper zero gauge ring terminal with a 6mm or 1/4" hole, you can actually run a zero gauge cable on an OG alternator without any problems.

... and to reiterate on what Eric said, positive and negative runs straight from the alternator to the battery on ANY setup. That is the most direct path for current to get from the alternator to the battery. Getting the current from the battery to your AMPLIFIERS is a different story. The best way to do that is to run dedicated positive and negative cables from the battery to the amps, which negates the need for a chassis ground altogether. Our main concern, is that the juice gets from the alt to the battery without damaging the alternator.