o0o0o.... Heh I forgot about the other wires.. Sounds great. Do you know if that would accelerate wear on the alt to any extent? I would thing if anythig it would retard wear. My switch panel looks kinda empty now....

Yeah I've heard of this before but I always thought it was 'reserved' for those looking for another 0.001hp. Didn't realize it made that much of a difference though. Might try it one day when I get bored, see what happens.

As for damage, I can't think of any either. Although if your battery is less than spectacular you might be short changing your ignition. Other than that...go for it!

You would be losing ignition voltage, so it would definatley be a good idea to make sure the battery is up to par. But that is kind of a given for a mod like this I would think.

I didn't think it would give that much gain either, until I witnessed the gains in person. We told our teacher about what we found and he wasn't suprised at all. He did a demostration in class that day and had someone spinning the alternator with their hand, showing how easy it was to spin, then he magnetized it so it would charge, and the kid spinning it couldn't even get it to spin at all, and he had it spinning pretty quick before hand. Also, if you look at how small the pulley is on the alternator, you can understand how much power it would rob if it got resistance due to how small it is. If a supercharger with a 3" pulley can rob like 50+hp, then an alternator with a ~2.5" pulley and a decent load can easily rob 10hp right??? Thats how I see it. It makes sense. If you've ever done a load test on an alternator you will see how much the engine bogs down when you put the load on it, it robs a lot of power.

Shawn

Ok so how does one do this mod?

Yeah I've tried the idea on another car I have. Roll the window all the way down or up, then keep holding the up or down button and the engine bogs for a moment. Funny, but it illustrates your point.

Makes me more interested in trying it. hmm..

Maybe I should get me an Optima first.

It'* a pretty cool mod...But only thing is that if you left the voltage regulator off, telling the alt the battery'* full, then your battery, depending on condition...Won't really run the car much farther than about .5 - 1 mile....before you start having things shut down. It'* definantly interesting....I can't think of any side effects other than depending on use, the battery may just crap out faster...Depending on how far the battery'* discharged by the time you kick the alt back on you could overwork the alt and cause it to wear faster.

You definitly need a voltmeter to do it right to make sure you dont kill all your electronics when racing. Maybe a "safety switch" that reads when your battery gets dangerously low and overrides the manual switch?

It would be about the same stress as jumping a battery I would think...

You guys have got to drive broken cars more.... I made four days/dozen or so starts with a dead alt.

Yeah guys, Straitor is right. If you have a decent battery, you can usually go serveral days, if not a week without one. It just may not be pretty.


-justin