Thread: For Don Shilady

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I think when Webster releases the next issue, a picture of that wire should be included in their definition of overkill.

AlternatorGround.JPG

Well the saddle mount bolt bosses are occupied with the aluminum electric water pump mounts so I found the bolt boss that would be used for a lower alternator mount. Overkill or not the No. 2 copper multi-strand cable now is grounded with a star washer to the front of the block. A tech guy at Powermaster told me he has seen a number of cases where the Moroso aluminum mount did not provide an adequate ground and my main mechanic Bruce Orlandi reminded me that some alternators have a second wire attachment for a ground so while that thick cable may be overkill it does provide a good ground directly to the block. Trying to start the engine without success many times led to fouled plugs so a new set of plugs and a reset of the Pertronix distributor resulted in a better running engine BUT only after I found the real problem! I don't know whether there is a universal color code for the small horse shoe type fuses but when my dual fan setup was installed a "green" fuse marked 20 amps found its way into the coil circuit. The original recommendation from It's-A-Snap was for a 30 amp fuse. When I replaced the 20 amp fuse with a 30 amp fuse the engine started right away although with two fouled plugs. Now after another set of new plugs the engine runs smooth and the pipes sound great! My latest theory is that when the second fan came on the current drain starved the distributor with too little current. I am adding a neater picture of the new thick cable mount. The next time I have the car in for State Inspection (November) I think I will try to find a MSD distributor with a small cap to replace the Pertronix conversion inside the small cap SBC 327 distributor that was all I could find to fit with a tight firewall clearance. I will also have to keep an eye on those plug wires to keep them off the headers. Eventually I will have to replace those wires with shorter wires. Overkill or not on the ground wire at least I did get rid of the clunky separator between the alternator and the block! I have made sure all the plug wires have at least one inch of header clearance since I took the picture! It is necessary to tilt the angle of the picture to see the No 2 cable in the darkness under the water pump.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I think I finally found the real problem. The alternator drive does not spin the alternator fast enough to keep the battery charged! I came across this problem and it's solution on another board and wonder why folks here did not spot it. Anyway I have on order a 5" pulley for the Moroso mandrel on the crank balancer which is 25% larger in diameter than the usual 4" pulley supplied in the Moroso water pump mount kit. In addition I ordered a slightly smaller pulley for the alternator of 2 3/8" which gives another 11% increase in rpm of the alternator. Since most of the time my 700R4 runs in OD the engine is typicaly running at around 2000-2200 rpm most of the time and ideling at a traffic light lets the alternator rpm drop below about 40 amps. Both the pulleys are available from Jones Racing Products in Ottsville Penna. Other folks have said this change in the pulleys does solve the typical gauge flutter when the amperage drops below what is needed. At worst the engine stalls when driving slowly since the alternator is not supplying enough amperage even for the distributor and this has happened to me mysteriously several times. I will add more details after the installation of these pulleys. I suppose there is a danger of over revving the alternator at say 5500 rpm on the engine but so far my 700R4 shifts well below 3500 engine rpm unless I hold it in low or second gear. Even in second gear I have only seen a high of 4500 rpm from the engine on extreme acceleration. I would rather have lights at night than save a few H.P. in alternator drag so the higher pulley ratio is better for the street.

Don Shilady
Retired Scietist/teen rodder

Don,
Not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but, for a retired scientist you sure go about things the hard way by doing a lot of guessing and buying things you may not need, when a small investment in a few meters and tools could diagnose your troubles a whole lot easier.

If you have the stock pulley sizes on your motor your alternator should be operating at it's correct output. However, if your alternator is sized incorrectly spinning it faster will only speed up the indefinable failure. I would advise checking your electrical system's total load first, then take the appropriate action needed. There are shops that can diagnose this for you and advise the correct repairs.

Just my humble opinion.

36 Sedan,
No offense taken, but I had a 110 amp alternator on a Zip water pump mount (Chevy 6 pump) before the shop who repaired my "dried out" 700R4 would not let my car out of his shop unless he built a dual fan cooling system his way. A considerable conflict arose with his wife getting into the financial aspects and a Deputy Sherriff who was one of the part time mechanics. That led to the Meziere electric water pump on a Moroso aluminum mount. The Moroso mount only allows a 94 mm diameter alternator (max 69 amps at 6000 alternator rpm) AND the shop had to move my radiator forward to fit it in! The Zip setup idled for 30 minutes without overheating in February but the shop said it would overheat in July. Anyway now I am just trying to get a setup that will have lights at night and not stall at idle without totally reinventing the Meziere mount. Since I found other boards on the Internet about the same problem with a small alternator I think I will finally solve it this time. The problem with the Transmission shop is that they wanted to rebuild my car but they made a mistake with the smaller alternator. I recall that I asked for the rating on the new alternator but his wife would not let me talk to the main mechanic (because he knew the amperage was low) and told me I could only wait in the customer lounge while the mechanic was making about $4500 in changes to my car! I had a problem with another shop a long time ago who was supposed to rebuild a VW engine for my dune buggy but every time I asked for a progress report he replied "I fooled you again!" and this continued for about a month before I was able to reclaim my parts and get another guy to help me put the box of parts and the split case together! I think that there is a common "customer interface" that is politely not mentioned on most of the posts here but it can be problem if a home builder reaches the limits of available tools and has to farm out work to a shop. My problem is that I get too interested in what the shop is doing or not doing and I don't have enough of my own tools to do certain tasks. I am limited to a 3/8" drill, a torque wrench and "arm strength" wrenches. However I have had two cases where the garage guy takes over and does not do what the customer asks. Anyway I will post the results of what this change in pulley size does for the situation. Overall I claim I did put together most of the car with help from an engine shop, a top shop, a paint shop and finally an abusive Transmission shop but I sure did a lot of the nitty gritty! Thanks for your interest.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Sorry, my bad. Good luck!

Hey 36 Sedan,

Thanks for your comments, you have been Forum friend for a while and I appreciate your comments. I take your recent comments together with the rant that I got from the Tech guy at Jones Racing Products. He told me he has sold over 15 sets of the higher ratio pulleys this year alone and he went on a tirade about how Moroso should not sell the smaller 4" pulley. However, trying to be fair and rational about this I can see that racers want to minimize the alternator drag and many eliminate the alternator for short runs so that is what Moroso sells for its mount. However the idle rpm of this setup quickly drains a battery for street use, especially in traffic. Now I realize why my 42 mile test runs at 60 mph did not present a problem but since then running in traffic the car will stall electrically and the gauges flutter due to a lot of engine idle at 900 rpm. Now I calculate that the tag on the alternator (Rayloc 13-8283) says 69 amps at 6000 alternator rpm and the new 5"/2 3/8" = 5/2.375=2.10526.. means that I will hit 69 amps at 2850 rpm on the engine but in the 700R4 OD and my 3.55 ratio rear that is well over 70 mph and most of the time cruising at 55-60 mph my tach says about 2100 engine rpm so I think the alternator will live longer than the fan belt going around that small 2 3/8" pulley but I will carry a spare fan belt!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Post Script: There seems to be some question about what is happening to my car and no one with a similar problem has spoken up so here is a reference to similar problem.

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=112916

36Sedan,

Here is some good news. I am attaching a picture of my previous pulley setup to run the RayLoc 13-8283 alternator. I am also attaching a picture of the solution to the problem of insufficient amperage when running in OD 4th gear of the 700R4. The second picture shows the new 5" pulley from Jones Racing Products (Ottsville, PA, 610-847-2028). What is shown is for a 1" diameter mandrel which was exchanged for the pulley on the engine now which uses a 1 1/8" mandrel, not shown but the outer diameter is the same 5" deep groove for a single v-belt. The T-shirt was free and offset the shipping cost. Without worrying over (pi x diameter) =circumference you can easily see the first pulley is only 3.5" diameter compared to the new 5" diameter which gives an increase in rpm at the alternator of (5/3.5)=1.428571429 for about 42 % increase in the alternator rpm. It turned out that the little pulley for the alternator would have given about 11% more rpm but there was just not enough clearance due to a cone on the back of the small pulley so the shop put the original 67 mm pulley back on the alternator. Once again Bruce Orlandi of Performance Transmission in Ashland/Hanover Air Park was a big help installing the new pulley in a very tight space between the harmonic balancer and the bottom of the radiator. Since he has experience with the mandrel drive for his drag car he finished the job in about two days in between other tasks while I would have certainly taken much longer using a floor jack to get under the front end. I learned several things about alternators which might be worth mentioning here. First, the amp curve for an alternator is generally shaped like a hockey stick rising up rapidly with rpm and then gently leveling off but still working up to about 12,000 rpm. In my case driving around town and on local blacktop roads my engine rpm seldom gets above 1900 rpm so the pulley ratio of about 1.8955 keeps the alternator at about 3600 rpm. Even at 3000 engine rpm (roughly 67 mph in OD) the alternator is still turning at only about 5686 rpm. The alternator specs say 44 amps at 2000 rpm (alternator) and 69 amps at 6000 (alternator rpm) so most of the time I will be running at about 60 amps which seems to be enough to charge at 13 volts even with the head lights on. Now I can run at night and still have enough amps to run my electric water pump and the two electric fans, although I think the whole system is marginal. However at a stop the engine idles at about 950-1000 rpm and amazingly I have 14 volts on my dash meter where before the voltage would drop to 10 or 11 volts at idle indicating a battery loss. Previousy I could generate all the time if I would run in third gear at 1.0 ratio instead of the 0.7 ratio of the 700R4 OD. I suppose the 3.55 ratio rear gear does not help much but now at least I am only running the alternator at an rpm that would be typical of running in 1.0 trans gear. I think the combination of my 3.55 rear and the 700R4 4th gear of 0.7 is on the ragged edge of a high ratio but it was chosen to give reasonable mpg and even then only comes out to about 16 mpg on average. The second thing I learned is that an alternator does not turn on until about 1500 alternator rpm BUT once you rev the engine to get above that value you can let the engine slow down and the alternator will still charge. Well now I have lights for night driving and can idle without running the battery down. I did a search on this Forum under "alternator" and found very little but other Camaro sites had a number of entries on the Jones pulley for increasing amperage, especially at idle. Maybe most of the folks here just put a 100 amp alternator on their engine and have no problem but cars that use an electric water pump, especially on the Moroso mount, may need to use a Jones 5" pulley to increase amps at engine ide speed so I am documenting my experience here.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Originally Posted by Don Shillady

36Sedan,

Maybe most of the folks here just put a 100 amp alternator on their engine and have no problem but cars that use an electric water pump, especially on the Moroso mount, may need to use a Jones 5" pulley to increase amps at engine ide speed so I am documenting my experience here.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Or maybe we use the stock sized 6" - 8" pulley on the crank.

Don,
I'm glad you got it sorted out!
I only have one question; Who in there right mind would put a 3-1/2" diameter pulley on the crank?????

36sedan,

That gives you some idea of the frustration I had with the Transmission shop that took over two months to install my cooling system but did not allow me to ask questions about the details of the setup! Of course I have several larger size pulleys from my mechanical water pump installation but once the shop adopted the Moroso racing type mount for the electric water pump the alternator is restricted to a maximum 94 mm diameter and the space between the harmonic balancer and the radiator is very limited. Thinking over your question I can see that mounting the alternator on the upper left forces it forward due to the left head being slightly forward as Jerry noted. Thus a mandrel on the harmonic balancer is needed to extend the crank pulley forward.

34-40,

I note that this Forum is included in Internet searches so maybe I have given some justified good remarks about the Jones Racing Products pulley.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Good info there Don.. great documentation too!

I feel your pain Bro.

Don,
No disrespect intended, but I've read and re-read your long post above (#245 with the pulley pictures), and I'm totally confused. Without rehashing all of the ratios, curves, mandrel sizes and who did what to whom at one time or another in this saga are you saying that you were running a 3.5" main drive pulley on your crankshaft, driving a smaller 67mm (~2 5/8") alternator pulley (the gold anodized one with the ruler) when you were chasing this problem? Like 36sedan, I'd say that the shop that did that work has some incompetent people that are being allowed to make decisions, and if they're in the BBB listing you should file a complaint. You also mention a 94mm (~3 3/4") pulley, which I assume is the second black pulley from Jones, but you're not running that one, right, due to space constraints?

Don, Picking the wrong shop can be an enormous PITA. I've done it, albeit on a much smaller scale. I've been following this thread for some time, and they've done just about every no-no in the book for a 700/R4 installation. If there's anything they did right on your setup, I certainly can't find it.

Roger, the 94 mm dimension refers to the overall diameter of the small alternator which fortunately is one of the higher rated 69 amp versions rather than the mini 55 amp variety. The Moroso mount is curved to hold this maximum diameter alternator and no more. As such I can barely close the hood as per requirements from my wife that the car can't show the (chrome trimmed) engine! The smaller pulley in the picture was the 2.375" Jones alternator pulley which would have given 11% more increase in alternator rpm but it has an offset in the back that would not fit available space. A test run from Ashland to Bowling Green and back today showed that on the road at 60 mph the alternator produced 14 volts or slightly above and only fluctuated slightly due to the internal regulator on the rear of the unit. The little traffic light driving showed that the voltage occasionally dropped to 13 volts but remained as a charging voltage at a 950 engine rpm idle. Today I sent the unused pulley back to Jones for credit. Not shown is the 1.125" diameter keyed mandrel bolted to the harmonic balancer along with thick aluminum spacer washers that serve as a backing to the 5" pulley to keep it from potential wobble. The mandrel provides a snout to move the 5" pulley forward to align the fan belt. Apparently Drag Racers use such a mandrel pulley system to drive a fuel pump and other accessories and was familiar to Bruce Orlandi who runs a 706 cu. in. aluminum BBC in a fiberglass Cavalier.

Henry and 36sedan,

I picked that shop because the owner has a Chevy sedan with a Corvette engine on a 700R4 but I sure wish I had found Bruce Orlandi's Performance Transmission shop first! Bruce has a one man shop that is extremely neat and is experienced building his own funny car. That would have saved a lot of frustration!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder