for the 2 years i have owned my car i have went through 2 alternators, im now on my 3rd. i always thought it was because of my "massive" 200W amp hitting too hard, but maybe it might be the long term effects of my alternator working too hard because it doesnt have a good connection to the battery. longer cable=more resistance right?
i have a 2-gauge wire from the battery to the starter and a 4-gauge from the battery to the main fuse box. fused @ 60amps.
no real problems with the alternator, its probably just under high load more than usual and just goes out. anyone else think this might be happening to them?

 

where are you getting them from? if autozone rebuilt ones spend the extra cash to get a brand new one. some rebuilt ones dont have long lifes.

 

the first one was OEM and the two from napa with warranty...i'm usually an OEM kinda guy but honda didn't have it in stock and i needed one right away..

 

Nah. I got my batt in the rear of my da and my ef...Never any probs....Get a multimeter and check for continuity on your grounds. Good ground is cricial. If you do, spend some time with the multimeter checking out various components for voltage drops. I would start with the ground(s) though.

 

yep grounds! make sure all are connected that u had to take off!

 

thanks for the replies.
so maybe the 1 ground in the back isnt good enough? i think i'll run a ground to the front anyway. but i'll do a voltage drop test too.

 

if the ground in the rear is to the body, id recommend running 4awg (minimum) back to the oem location, tranny, block, etc. visualize the body being plastic so you cant ground to it all, run your grounds only where they need to go. its the same idea with those grounding kits, less drag on the system. old school logic back

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 88crx-si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thanks for the replies.
so maybe the 1 ground in the back isnt good enough? i think i'll run a ground to the front anyway. but i'll do a voltage drop test too.</TD></TR></TABLE>

NOOOOOOOOOOO.....Too long of a ground cable is a BAD thing. I made my own ground in the rear to the chassis. Just made sure I scraped the hell outta the existing paint then used 4ga wire for it. Definitely do not run a ground from the rear to the front. You want as short of a ground as possible. No more than 18 in long.

 

I haven't had any problems with my alternator with my battery being in the back in the two years I've had the car. Of course, I am running a westco battery with 900 cold cranking amp, and used to have one 800 watt and one 250 watt amp in the back. The lowest my voltage has gone is 12.6 but that was with almost full blast music on/ac/lights/brake lights and wipers on.

Normally with only one amp in the back I don't go below 13.8 volts.

 

just a little more general info -

in terms of the load on your system, the idea is to shoot for a zero resistence or totally neutral ground. like blaqman said too much cable is a bad thing because it creates a "choke point" or bottle neck. the issue is that unibodies are loaded with these points from the factory, theres at least a dozen of them. chasing them down to confirm clean contact is a good place to start. the factory manual has them broken down by circuit.

the same is not true of tube frame or frame rail style cars. in this case the frame is near perfect for grounding. in general they avoid the body and go to the frame because of its inherent effeciency. larger fiberglass boats mimic that design as well while the littler ones just run cable.

my earlier comment about running cable to the block and isolating the ground to its minimum was a race only application, not practical for street but it made a positive difference. we tested it both ways and when it was switched to factory mode you could here the motor pick up the load like you were turning on the AC. not quite that dramatic, but real obvious in terms of resistence.