How do I wire up my new 1 wire alternator and what do I do with the old voltage regulator and wiring?

 

Woot! I did this change about a year ago, I did a serious upgrade to my stock 30-40 amp generator to a one wire 130amp alternator. To help with my future radio, fog light and other electrical upgrades (that I did this summer). Here is my pay back to the web site seeing as I posted the same exact question a year back.

Cut all the wires from your old generator and remove it. The single wire from your new alternator goes to the positive terminal on your solenoid. Your new alternator has an internal voltage regulator that works above a certain alternator rpm. I'm not sure what that is specifically but mine works perfect at my normal engine idle.

Use the cool pic below for reference. Don't thank me, it was posted a year back from someone cool enough to take the time to answer my same question. I printed it off and taped it to my garage wall as a reference for other things.

James

 

Just to be clear, that diagram is not for a one-wire, it is a 3G. The one-wire connects exactly as James says, but does not require the 3 wires going to the ASI connector.

 

All you need to do for a 1 wire alt is to run a heavy gauge wire (I want to say a 4 or 6 gauge) from the post on the alternator to the hot side of the starter solenoid.

It is my understanding that you can simply tape up the old alternator wires, or if you wish you can remove them from the harness as far back as practical. These wires will still be "hot" so tape them up good.

When I bought the one wire setup, the manufacturer supplied a wire of the proper gauge. It only needed to be about a foot long....

Prior to the conversion I ditched all of the stock wiring, so if I seem less than sure about what to do with the stock wires I am..... but I am better than 99% on what you can do with the stock wires, and I am 100%+ sure about the wire from the alt to the hot side of the solenoid...

As the name implies, a one wire alternator only needs one wire. The alternator turns itself on and off using RPM as a signal to switch as appropriate. (i.e. no rpm = off, above about 1,500 engine RPM switches the unit on until RPM drops to zero or near zero.)

 

Here are Powermaster installation instructions for a one-wire that might help:

http://static.summitracing.com/globa...wm-8-47140.pdf

 

Don't forget a breaker inline as well. I used 2awg wiring with a 140amp breaker.

 

DC the old voltage regulator, remove it entirely from the car if you like, hookup the hot wire from the alt. output to the (+) side of the battery, and the old alt wiring can be taped up, or removed. Literally, it really is a 1 wire hookup.

 

Just a word of caution, some 1 wire alternators are GM units that require an additional wire from the top plug to the B+ terminal to excite the thing. Overall it's a very easy job. Also, It is not essential that you put circuit protection in the alternator output wire, personally (not knocking colorado's advice) as an electrical engineer, I would not put a 140 amp breaker in or use 2 ga. wire. (that 's way too big for anything in the factory wire loom to handle and it will smoke the main feed wire to the fuse block and everything attached to it depending on how it's wired)
Good luck on your project.