Okay, so today I started working on "The Big 3." That is, I trashed the old 6 gauge copper and replaced it with 2 gauge copper between my positive terminal and starter; my negative and ground; and 10 gauge between positive and alternator... worst idea ever. Yeah I got it to work and looks great, but I spent about 4 or 5 hours working on it xD. My main problem was the starter. Impossible thing to get to it is. Worst part is I'm still not done. It works, but I have to clean it up. Loom up the extra wire and redo some of the crap I did temporarily because I really wanted to get home. But over all, it does help.

My headlights don't dim that much anymore and I noticed a significant reduction in load on the engine when I turn my heater on.

That and I got rid of the crappy side-post style batteries that GM designed.

Sorry I didn't get any pictures. The progress was painfully slow and annoying.

 

why would you upgrade the starter wire??? You do realize you wasted a bunch of time doing something completely worthless?? I did the big 3 on my blazer in about 25 minutes. one of the simplest vehicles to do it on. ALl you needed to do was ADD (NOT REPLACE) the positive wire from the altenator to battery, ground from engine to frame and battery to frame.

 

Why did it take 4-5 hours? I done it on my 87 in 1/0 and only took about 2 (this counting beer breaks). I replaced my factory battery to engine, battery to alt, battery to starter, and added battery to frame; core support; body: then body to to frame in the rear of the blazer.

As for replacing wires I done it to be a cleaner looking install. Even on his 94 which was sold in 93 the wires if never replaced are 15 years old. Have you ever seen undersized electrical wires after even a couple of years, now add to this a harsh environment (extreme temps daily) with battery acid involved. The ones on my 87 (22 years old) were falling apart.


My question is why did you only use small 10 gauge from alt to battery? Its still a bottle neck and you need to at least make it match the rest to get the whole point of doing the big three. Hell if I remember right it was 8 gauge from the factory anyways so you downgraded wire.

 

Really? I don't fully understand the concept of automotive electrical systems altogether. You're saying I should go ahead and replace the battery positive to alternator with 2 AWG.

And it took so long because I am by no means an auto mechanic.

 

yes replace the positive on you battery to alt.

 

Will do. I have a lot of extra connected to my negative cable so when I cut the extra off we will see if it fits.

 

The big 3 is replacing/adding

neg battery to engine block
neg battery to frame
pos battery to alt

In bigger wire than it came from factory. Most common is 1/0 wire but anything bigger is better.
I also like to add on my rigs

neg to core support
neg to body
body to frame (in the rear of the truck)

The last three are over kill and don't have to be done but I get welding cable for free and it doesn't hurt.

 

Okay my questions are:

A: How do you distribute that?!
B: Where is the gain?

 

what do you mean???

electricity follows the path of least resistance. So therefore running a larger gauge wire will allow greater electrical flow resulting in better charging as well as vehicle performance

 

.. everything worked on my big 3 but then i use 1/0 awg