Electrical Upgrade, Overkill...

[CodyB]

I started this for another forum, but never got around to posting it up there, so I figured Ya'll might like to see it over here.

Just a little bit of info and pictures of what I did to dress up my wiring, and for me a safety aspect.

I was cheap in getting 1/0 by only using 1 color for all of my positive and negative wires, and as you can guess that can be confusing, so to remedy the problem I decided to add colored jackets to the wire.

I used Flex Braid Tubing, to me Convoluted tubing looks like junk but its a personal preference sorta thing I guess. (When I get time/money I'm more than likely going to deck out the rest of my engine bay with Flex Braid or Split Flex Braid.

I bought my tubing from Electriduct.
Shipping was fairly inexpensive and overall price was the lowest I could find for what I wanted.

Specifically I used these two products along with heat shrink tubing to finish off the ends.
PET Expandable Braided Sleeving Colors By The Foot.
PET Expandable Braided Sleeving Black By The Foot.

For my Tsunami 1/0 I used 1/2" to have a tight fit on the wire. The 1/2" starts at, you guessed it, 1/2" and expands out to 3/4" This allowed me to have a nice tight fit on the wire and fit it over my terminals so you don't have to have the sleeving on before you add the terminals. On all but one end I used heat shrink tubing, 3/4" to keep the ends from fraying.

The one big trick to easily get the heat shrink on over the quickly fraying ends is to leave about 2-3" of the sleeving overlapping the terminal on one end so it is shrunk to its smallest size, then slip both pieces of heat shrink on the wire, when you have that done then you can position your sleeving in place and shrink the ends on.

Here are the pictures of my wires completed, I know I need a new battery and terminals, but its what I have and I didn't think I would be making this so no in-progress pics, sorry.

First few pics are from my iphone, so not the greatest... Anyhow.

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In hand is freshly finished first wire, behind it is the clear wire without the sleeving on it.

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At this point Ive already finished it up and showing ends and such.

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Crap Walmart battery, Cheap distro blocks. Money is short, Im in college...

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Mechman 250A Rhino alt, Terminals for the positive and ground make the big 3 cleaner looking.

The Big 3 refers to upgrading your leads going from your negative battery terminal to your ground (frame or body), Negative to the alternator case or engine, and positive to your alternator.

If you guys want to see an article about the big 3 alone, I can pull one over to here for you. Stock wiring is maybe 8 awg at its biggest, and I used 1/0 to redo mine. My truck on average charges above 14.5 volts and right now I had to swap my stock alternator back on while I sent the one pictured out for warranty work, well it charged at 15.38V this morning. Pretty amazing when it was stock wiring i was lucky to charge at 14.00 volts...

Please excuse the nastiness of my engine bay, I hadn't cleaned it up before I did this.

 

[sanitarium]

http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/index.php?showtopic=62826&st=40

never overkill

 

[jonnyukon]

i also use a mechman street beat 250 alt... freaking awesome! 127 amps while at idle an 250 at 2000rpm......wow... adjusted voltage regulator... mechman ftw!

 

[DRAGGIN95]

Nice, I have had an Ohio generator, and a Powermaster high output alternator, but I might have to try on e of these some time, good write up CodyB!

 

[MIHELA]

I thought my 2 gauge wire upgrade on my Grand Am was overkill. I like.

 

[Trill]

Nice, I have had an Ohio generator, and a Powermaster high output alternator, but I might have to try on e of these some time, good write up CodyB!

How did that Ohio generator work out?

 

[Cablguy184]

You can never have "overkill" on electrical ...

Do you have your second battery setup under the hood of your truck ??

 

[1997chevydriver]

Nice thread dig

 

[DRAGGIN95]

How did that Ohio generator work out?

Well the first one quit in no time at all, and they rebuilt it for free, and the second one shorted out internally the second day after I installed it on my truck and nearly burned my truck to the ground, so needless to say I will never have anything elses of their's!

 

[Pierced]

1/0 awg wire overkill...

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4/0 FTW

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