what year car did you guys get your 1-wire alt. from? i need to replace my alt. and i want a 1-wire with about 80amps. any suggestions?

Its for a small block

ordered mine from Jegs or Summit. Getting old cannot remember it's been 5 years and many parts ordered since.

First suggestion: A one-wire alternator does nothing better than a traditional 3-wire; and it does two things not as well: You can't run the dashboard indicator light; and you don't get the benefit of remote voltage sensing which can compensate somewhat for the older wiring in our collector cars.

If I had it to do again, I'd be buying a 12SI alternator instead of the older 10SI units I have now.

I agree with Shurkey..... nothing really better about a 1-wire, if you have all the wiring to use a normal alternator. But, there's nothign wrong with them, if you lack the proper wiring, or like the clean look.

I have one, and I got it from the local old-style parts store, where the guy rebuilds alternators and starters in the back. I told him what I wanted (1-wire, 100amp) and he put one together for me. :thumbsup:

what year car did you guys get your 1-wire alt. from? i need to replace my alt. and i want a 1-wire with about 80amps. any suggestions?

Its for a small block

Be aware, your stock wiring harness is not designed to carry 80 amps.

You should upgrade the charging wire from the alternator to the battery.

Or you could do nothing an risk a wiring fire.

Verle

If you using a 1-wire alt. you can install a volt meter in place of a idiot light, to monitor the alt. It should read 14volts to 14.5 volts. If it reads 12V or below then the alt is not working.

what year car did you guys get your 1-wire alt. from? i need to replace my alt. and i want a 1-wire with about 80amps. any suggestions?

Its for a small block

I bought a chrome one, 1 wire 100amp on ebay at gr8hotrods for my 67 Chevelle 350 sb

I bought my chrome 1 wire 100 amp alternator at the local hot rod shop.

what year car did you guys get your 1-wire alt. from?
Oh, yeah--one more thing.

It'll be tough finding an OEM one-wire alternator. GM didn't make many of them because they knew better than to use a one-wire alternator on a street-driven car.

There's plenty of aftermarket one-wires, though.

I bought my chrome 1 wire 100 amp alternator at the local hot rod shop.

Interesting...did you rewire the car? If not it can be a great way get a wire harness to burn up, maybe even a whole car. I believe the wire size is only a 12 AWG that goes from the alternator to the horn relay on most Chevelles. Go on the web and look up the current capacity of a 12AWG or 10 AWG for that matter and then tell me your not worried.

Ron

can you up grade the charging wire from the alternator to the battery to a no 8 wire and elimnate the risk of a fire or should one look into changing the whole harness, ? I am about to change to 100 amp alt. thank you Mike

can you up grade the charging wire from the alternator to the battery to a no 8 wire and elimnate the risk of a fire or should one look into changing the whole harness, ? I am about to change to 100 amp alt. thank you Mike
I would say that 8 gauge to the battery won't be overly helpful; it's not the battery that's going to draw the power.

What you need to reinforce is the wiring to the fuseblock--which is powered via the horn relay on many of the older GMs; some newer ones have a wire taking power off of the main + post on the starter. In addition, certain heavy-amperage accessories may be best run with a wire straight from the alternator output terminal. I used a 10 gauge wire protected by a 14 gauge fusible link when I rewired my headlights to use a relay instead of pulling the power through the headlight switch.

Are you actually going to DRAW 100 amps? Electric fans can be a killer at least for short-term amperage draw; most everything else won't pull very much. For many applications, the main benefit of an alternator with a high amperage rating is not the actual rated amperage; it's the increased amperage at idle which won't be anywhere near 100 amps--but it'll be higher than what a 38-amp alternator can output at idle.

You will find all the information about the conversion to an 1-wire alternator and the necessary new circuit diagram at www.madelectrical.com
That side helps me a lot to understand this Chevy electric system.
Rainer

You will find all the information about the conversion to an 1-wire alternator and the necessary new circuit diagram at www.madelectrical.com (http://www.madelectrical.com)
That side helps me a lot to understand this Chevy electric system.
Rainer

Great place to go for info. Remember that in case the battery gets a short (this sometimes happens!) the alternator will put out full current (100A at 14V which is 1400 watts, that's the power of a portable electric heater like you would have at home; you know how hot those can get!) into the short. The harness will burn up unless you use the proper fusible link (not a fuse, unless you like replacing fuses a lot).

You can use Marine fuses in this application as they come in 50 to 300A ratings but they take special fuse holders and are very costly.

Where to get these fuses? Places like West Marine:
http://www.westmarine.com

Look under "browse categories" then "electrical". There is a lot of good stuff here.

Ron