96f150351w

Bronco graveyard and summit say it's recommended

unit505

Nothing HAS to change for the larger alternator, but some changes are beneficial no matter the alternator. Upgrading to a larger gauge hot wire from the alternator and adding a second ground to chassis from the battery will give much better efficiency from the charging system as well as rewiring the headlights with a relay kit and heavier gauge wiring will result in brighter headlights. There is a name for these mods, but I don't remember what it was called. You can buy the relay kit for about $40 or build it for about $10. Very simple. The alternator hot wire upgrade is only a couple of bucks. New ring terminals and a piece of 8g wire does the trick. For the chassis ground, i just purchased a 3ft. negative battery cable and bolted it to the chassis and negative battery terminal. Doing these upgrades will gain you a few amps of lost power.

fltdriver

I would use 4g for a 130amp alt, and at least 2g if not 0/1 for 200amp, 8g might not be able to handle that kind of amperage.

Be sure to put an inline fuse in as well, within 18" of alt, you will want to go 10-20% higher than the alt (150a fuse for 130amp alt). What I did was used 4g battery cable and a 150a breaker, I also took the old charging line and used it to beef up the battery>body ground.


I did a write up when I upgraded my headlight wiring(https://www.f150forum.com/f10/upgrad...-power-277184/) definitely get the headlight extensions to cut up for the wiring so you don't have to mess with cutting the factory connectors. They snap right on and or only a few bucks on ebay.

unit505

My 8g is in addition to the factory wire. Guess I should have specified that.

96f150351w

I got a 170 amp one from bronco graveyard. He said that I don't need to change the factory wiring. If i go any higher then 170 then I would have too.

96f150351w

Would I be able to use the underdrive alt. pulley on the new alt or should I just keep the one that comes with it on? I know if I put the underdrive one on it's not going to give out as much amps

96f150351w

Soo I put the 170amp alt on. Once I hooked the battery terminals up they started to spark the blew a wire out....lucky me..what could have cause this too happen?