I was at mcdonalds waiting the car was in drive but i was holding the brake, the stereo was on but not playing music the only other part of that running was the little fan in the amp, I had my neon lights on which run off the cigarette lighters through a 3 way split, and the headlights were on. As I'm sitting there the car kinda made a shutting down sound, the idle kinda "broke" idk like a coughing sound and the battery guage dropped from 17 to 12 for like 5-10 seconds then gradually went back up.

I have a feeling this is my alternator telling me its giving up, this is similar to the issue I had when i would come home and put my car in reverse to go park in my garage and the guage would drop and i had to rev to get it back up again.

Any ideas? I'm considering getting a bigger alternator to handle my stereo better.

the stock alts dont put out very much current at idle even new, then the battery and alt start to wear and it makes it worse, add in your aftermarket stuff it compounds.

i would be interested to see if you could do the junk yard ad244 conversion. its not for the faint of heart but the at idle benefits would be great
https://www.gmforum.com/showthread.p...options&page=3

If your voltmeter in the car is accurate you already have alternator issues. 17 volts is way too high, the regulator should hold the voltage between 13-14.5 volts.
Your local auto parts store will probably do a free check for you.

Roger.

the gauges are far from accurate, i dont know why they even bother putting numbers on them

sorry it wasnt 17 it was 16, theres a red gap at line 17 to 18 mine is at the line before the 17 line its always run at that, ill check that write up out

It is obligatory to check up a bolt on (-) and brushes