High output alternators for 5th Gen?

S

swimmerdude1127

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For you guys running a lot of electrical load on your rigs (with or without a dual battery), ever given any thought to an upgraded higher output alternator?

From the little bit that I have looked, it seems there is no plug and play option for the 5th Gens... at least not that I've seen.

Anyone running one?
 
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swimmerdude1127 said:
For you guys running a lot of electrical load on your rigs (with or without a dual battery), ever given any thought to an upgraded higher output alternator?

From the little bit that I have looked, it seems there is no plug and play option for the 5th Gens... at least not that I've seen.

Anyone running one?
Click to expand...

With a dual battery setup, a bunch of lights, a fridge, a trailer (plus the auxiliary electrical system I have there), etc I've often thought about a higher output alternator. I haven't seen any "plug and play", and I'm not aware of anyone within this community that is running anything but stock.

Also, I plug my truck into the maintenance charger every night.
 
I didn't find any info on the 5th gen, but the 4th gen comes with a 130 amp alt. that's pretty decent.
my HO alt on my wheeler is only 140 I think.
 
That's a big jump, I would think you would need to upgrade your alt->battery wiring too. Anyone know if the current setup will handle that load?

I like 240A Compilot posted too, it looks like nice, like a straight drop in. My very limited experience 20 years ago with the last one I had was a PITA, custom brackets, grinding the alt casing, wiring etc, thankfully is was only a 22RE so tons of room to work.
 
jrandom said:
That's a big jump, I would think you would need to upgrade your alt->battery wiring too. Anyone know if the current setup will handle that load?

I like 240A Compilot posted too, it looks like nice, like a straight drop in. My very limited experience 20 years ago with the last one I had was a PITA, custom brackets, grinding the alt casing, wiring etc, thankfully is was only a 22RE so tons of room to work.
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In the car audio world, they do this upgrade called "the big three", I think in order to maximize current flow by reducing resistance to a minimal using larger conductors. Here's a very quick article explaining it: Upgrading a car's electrical system: do you need the big 3?

It would probably be a good idea if you're going with a higher output alternator to do that kind of wiring upgrade along with it, just so that nothing ends up being a "bottle neck", so to speak.

If you don't it's like upgrading to a super size drink because you're real thirsty, and then proceeding to try to guzzle that down through a tiny straw. You ain't quenching that thirst anytime soon since the tiny straw is a bottle neck. Switch to a larger straw and you'll be able to much more easily drink that soda, lol.
 
eddiebx said:
In the car audio world, they do this upgrade called "the big three", I think in order to maximize current flow by reducing resistance to a minimal using larger conductors. Here's a very quick article explaining it: Upgrading a car's electrical system: do you need the big 3?
Click to expand...
This upgrade replaces or augments three key cables in the electrical system with 1/0 or 4 gauge wires: the battery ground to chassis wire, the chassis to engine block wire,
Click to expand...
That sounds awfully similar to a hyper grounding kit. I had a hypergrounding/hypervoltage system from SUN (Sun Automobile Performance Prodcuts) on one of my previous vehicles. Should I dig that back out of my parts pile?

Okki
 
Okki said:
That sounds awfully similar to a hyper grounding kit. I had a hypergrounding/hypervoltage system from SUN (Sun Automobile Performance Prodcuts) on one of my previous vehicles. Should I dig that back out of my parts pile?

Okki
Click to expand...

I mean...if it's just a fatter cable then that would surely suffice, cooper is cooper, lol. The name of that kit you mentioned reminds me of back in the day when it was the cool thing to do to throw on like 10 additional grounding straps all over the engine bay. Not quite sure if all that is needed though.

I think the most beneficial wire to upgrade out of the three is the big one that runs from straight off the alternator to the battery, I doubt that cable has been sufficiently sized by the factory to push way more amps than stock. Plus a larger cable will make things much easier to flow at higher currents :)
 
eddiebx said:
I mean...if it's just a fatter cable then that would surely suffice, cooper is cooper, lol. The name of that kit you mentioned reminds me of back in the day when it was the cool thing to do to throw on like 10 additional grounding straps all over the engine bay. Not quite sure if all that is needed though.

I think the most beneficial wire to upgrade out of the three is the big one that runs from straight off the alternator to the battery, I doubt that cable has been sufficiently sized by the factory to push way more amps than stock. Plus a larger cable will make things much easier to flow at higher currents :)
Click to expand...

For your enjoyment from 2008! http://web.archive.org/web/20080510222728/http://www.arbouw.com/Honda/HyperGrounding.asp

:rofl:

Okki
 
eddiebx said:
In the car audio world, they do this upgrade called "the big three"
Click to expand...

Sure I have done all of this before ages ago (friends with ludicrously loud stereos, me winches and lights ects), merely inquiring the state of the factory wiring, having the 130A alternator surely the system is rated for at least that, I am curious if it is rated for more.

eddiebx said:
Plus a larger cable will make things much easier to flow at higher currents
Click to expand...

Sure, but more off and my main concern aside from through would be keeping the cabling cooler (leading back to my original question about stock durability), ie as to not catch on fire/melt/destroy herein sensitive parts or truck altogether. :D
 
^^I think if you are just concerned with fires, nothing bad can possibly happen since the OE cable is protected with a fuse right? I haven't taken a look at our trucks but I think the (+) wire from the alternator runs into the fuse box, through a fuse, and then to the battery (like on most vehicles)?

So assuming your higher output alternator was to produce too much current and the battery is drawing too much current causing the OE cable to want to go on fire, the fuse would pop before anything goes up in flames I would imagine :)
 
eddiebx said:
^^I think if you are just concerned with fires, nothing bad can possibly happen since the OE cable is protected with a fuse right? I haven't taken a look at our trucks but I think the (+) wire from the alternator runs into the fuse box, through a fuse, and then to the battery (like on most vehicles)?

So assuming your higher output alternator was to produce too much current and the battery is drawing too much current causing the OE cable to want to go on fire, the fuse would pop before anything goes up in flames I would imagine :)
Click to expand...

Very true, I would hope! Have seen stranger :)

I haven't looked in the 5th gen (yet) but I thought it was relayed not a fusible link?
 
Why?

Has anybody has any issue with the stock alt. not keeping up? I know that I have not and I've got more than most hooked up.
 
I'm running a 130A alternator in my truck, run an icom IC706, another dual band radio, have also run a TE systems 2m 200W amp with this setup, as well as a 1200 watt cb amp years ago, 130A is more than enough to run a couple dual band radios and some LED lighting.

Also, a 130A alternator is just barely capable of running the original Premier power welder for vehicles, and the reason why I bought an upgraded alternator. I'm pretty sure a welder pulls much more current than what you'll probably be running in your vehicle. And, unless you'll be sitting at idle with everything running full blast, including a/c on high, headlights on, interior lights on, all the while talking at a full 50 watts on 2m or 100 watts on hf ssb, I think you'll be just fine with 130 amps of power.

Of course, you could always add up your accessories amperage and see how much of an extra load you'll have on your system. AFAIK, most dual banders will pull a max of 12A (based on icom 5100a on 440 at full power), and most LED-based light bars will pull around 20A (based on Rigid 50" bar with 100 leds).

To give some sort of non-technical data of older models, the 4runners/trucks of the 80's came stock with 65A alternators and were barely enough to run halogen lights with extra stuff, the 5th gen has twice that current and should be fine for running a good deal of accessories. If you really need the extra current, then an upgraded alternator is what you'll need, Rigtec has links and pics and prices of one such unit.
 
tigger said:
[MENTION=83083]rigtec[/MENTION] Help the guy out.
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Hi tigger (and all others who have participated in this subject!),

I haven't studied this thread in it's entirety, only the last couple of pages that I believed may be relevant. After I bought the 2012 limited 4Runner in April of that same year, I started examining the factory audio components very closely (non-JBL ((XM)) ). It seemed that no matter what I did using it's on-board tone shaping processor it just didn't sound the way that I thought a Toyota (any model) "Limited Edition" sound system should sound! The short version of this saga is this:

I saw that it demonstrated Very poor bass; as compared to my wife's '04 camery, 8 speaker JBL audio system. Granted... it's made by JBL and mine was not. But I mean my new truck's lack of bass was down right embarrassing; to say nothing of the cheap sounding mids and highs! So I started off by adding a self contained sub-woofer system which included one JL audio HD-750 mono-block and two tens.... no problem! But bass (IMHO) has that insatiable, addictive element which some can't get enough of; and being a recording and concert bass player didn't help one bit when it came down to my attempt to reproduce that genuine studio electric fender bass vibe!

But everything was just fine as far as the truck's electrical system (voltage) being stiff enough to handle whatever I was throwing at it. At this point I was only using (1) 750 watt (55 ampere) mono-block subwoofer amplifier, (1) set of PIAA 520 Halogen fog-lights (about ten amps total); so that's 55A plus 10A = 65A of aftermarket add-ons... still no problem. I added an OPT7 eight inch LED the bull-bar, just to fill in that funny looking space between the two 6 1/2" PIAA fogs; created when I was forced to move my now obscured front licence plate to a more visible location:



I think that LED's full load draw capacity averages 10A so that's 75 amps total aftermarket add-on power consumption. Everything still seemed fine, with just a slight pulsation from the lights if I ran all add-ons (bass amp pumping) simultaneously, along with the blower, wipers (front and rear), seat heaters, and the side-view mirror and rear window heater grid. So now I'm at the stock system load plus the aftermarket load (75A). As long as I wasn't using ALL of the aftermarket accessories at the same time (worst case scenario) everything would be just fine.

But let's not forget that some of the factory electrical utilities are running whenever you're driving so we can't discount these altogether. But it was when I added the second JL 750 watt (55 amps) that there was no ignoring the power shortage. Now I actually have 130 amperes of aftermarket accessories alone. And in post # 15 of an alternator upgrade thread, I tried to calculate just how much electrical power the 4Runner's factory electrical system could actually consume if a worst case scenario were allowed to manifest... Calculating (worst case scenario) factory electrical load post #15

I was hoping for those of you who have never seen this thread http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/172070-4runner-alternator-upgrade-gen-5-a.html that you may read it and take something away from it that just may be helpful to you at some point, Sincerely,

rig
 
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