Stang-aholic

I know there is a lot of threads about electrical problems in the mustang s197. but my case is a little bit different and very confuzing to me atleast. anyway i just recently installed a 500w alpine mono block amp into my car (mounted on a custom made bracket to tuck up above in the passenger footwell.) to power the shelby/kicker upgraded door subs. my car did not come with factory shaker, but i do have an aftermarket Pioneer avhp-4200dvd HU already installed.

i wired everything up correctly, all wire in engine bay or going around metal (including speaker wires running into doors and wires run above the metal bracket I made to hold the amp that run to the HU) were covered by 3/8" plastic wire protector. same stuff as the engine bay wiring harness has. this way i know i do not have a short in my wiring at all.

I turned on the system for the first time and everything worked well, sounded awesome and hit hard. i turned it on and off multiple times during day, but by that evening after dinner i went out to my car to go home and started it. everything was normal for nearly 3min, then the first thing i noticed was the music started cutting up/glitchy. then the HU went dark. including the backlight on buttons. then my gauges went dark. i tried turning on my lights but nothing responded at all. when i noticed the engine start idling strange i cut it off immediately. we made it home that night when my dad brought a spare 100% charged battery and we drove back just fine (20min drive).

that night we took out the in-line fuse on my power wire which is hooked up to the main power feed of the fuse box in the engine comparment (same location as where shelby locates their power supply for their system upgrade) to my amp because we assumed that it was continually drawing power after the car was off. maybe the blue/white remote control wire from the HU continually had voltage going to it bc the HU has a little draw for presets/clock/ect. this wire i left connected bc the amp can no longer get power w/o a fuse.

but odly enough today i went to do some errands (still had 100% battery in it from night before, no fuse in in-line power supple to amp) and about 20 min into my drive the same symptoms started. crackle/glitches in music (connected to ipod), radio dies, gauges dimmed this time. but this time i also kept an eye on the battery gauge in dash, it was practically on L already! it also seemed that when i gave the car gas the needle moved more toward L, when i coasted the needle would start moving the other way toward H... very strange, and all of this was happening w/o the fuse for the amp in. when i made it home i put my battery charger on it and it read 20%!!!! WTF? this is really frustrating bc we thought we had it figured out that the amp was the one that was draining the battery, but now we suspect the alternator.

the question is: how in the world could i damage/kill my alternator so much so fast from just the install of a 500w amp? im thinking this must have occured when i first installed it and didnt sense any problems?

but could it be something else? im taking it into the stealership tomoro at 7am to get them to run some tests on it and find out whats going on.

this is extremely frustrating and im sure too long of a post, but i really would appreciate any advice. i just want to be able to drive it further than 20min w/o it dying and listen to my new system which took me 4 days to do from start to finish!!! and all it was was an amp and 2 8" door sub install!

i can tell you that the car is a 2006 with 33k miles, the battery is less than 1.5 years old

Nuke

Your alternator sounds fried or it simply can't keep up with the power demands of the new amp. I suspect it was degrading for some time but you simply weren't loading it down enough to notice it. You're probably running on mostly nothing but battery since the amp install.

My guess also is that both batteries are ok, just in need of a good charge.

157dB

The alt was on the edge and the mono block pushed it on over....

paul91gt

I would check the AMP rating on the stock alternator and see if maybe you need to upgrade to a higher AMP unit. It sounds a little coicidental that the alternator would just crap out, but it is possible. I guess if it smokes the new one you will know. It sounds like you did your homework in the install and if was a short it would blow fuses most likely before smoking an alternator.

Nuke

The S197 alternators are finicky from the start. They don't like low voltage, spikes and overloads. Trash the trash and pick one up from PA Performance http://www.pa-performance.com/Script...elname=Mustang

GTRaider

Check all of your ground connections for corrosion, too! If you replaced the original battery with another Motorcraft, you should think about buying an Optima Yellow Top or other deep cycle battery. That should help with the heavy amps you pull. They ain't cheap but not much is anymore!

157dB

Pull the Amps ground directly from the
battery instead of the "frame". This gets
the amps load off of the OEM ground cable.
Red Tops are best for the situation.
Stang OEM cables on the top posts
and the AUX stereo power from
the side posts.
A FARAD or so CAP at the AMP will also help with
the voltage spikes when the bass hits hard.

Just remember, the pump can only fill the bucket
so fast. And that MONO BLOCK punched a big
ol hole in the bottom of that bucket....

Bigger output ALT is the pump
and the bucket is the battery.

JAMAMAN

I had the exact same problem. I thought it was the battery, it wasnt. Then i assumed it was the alternator, it wasnt that either. I found the hard way through others that i had a water problem that cause my speakers to go crazy, dash to be possessed and that charging system kept coming on all the time that i thought my car was a right off. I fixed the water issue, and i never say that problem. Water was messing with my SBJ. I hope that is not your issue cause i rather change an alternator then deal with water s h i t