I purchased the last of everything i needed for the swap today and i was thinking since i bought all new wire for the battery, i would do the big 3 upgrade. Already doing most of it anyway. From what i read, you replace alt wire with bigger one. Well, i traced my alt wire down and it dont go to the battery. None of the 4 wires coming from it does. The one i was going to replace runs to a lil black box on the fender between the vaf and ignition coil. Then goes into harness and looks like goes into the fuse box. Is this the wire i upgrade? Or just run a new one from battery to alt and maybe fuse it? Do i really meed to do this with stock alt?

 

I have noticed toyota alternators are wired funny too. I would just replace all your grounds and starter lead and call it good. Upgrade the alt wiring if you swap to something like a GM alt.

 

thanks for the input guys. i have never seen an alt wired like this. wonder what the purpose of it is? its not like you can hook jumper cables and give someone a jump. think i will just do the starter and grounds for now. im not running a higher amp alt and dont have any accessories other than the amp. and its not that big. if i start to notice an issue, i will end up doing it. feeling a bit under the weather right now, so im hoping to get to this later tonight or tomorrow.

 

well, i got the swap done today and let me tell ya, it looks waaaaaay cleaner under the hood now. not sure if the swap or the upgrade to the battery cables and grounds did it, but as soon as i fired it back up, it ran smoother and sounded way better. took it out a back road for test drive and the throttle seemed a bit more touchy. i have new plugs, cap and rotor, and coil waiting to go in, but waiting on fedex to bring me my ngk wires. which i thought were going to be here today. fedex actually pulled in my drive, got halfway to my house and just backed up and left. i was pretty bummed. so now gotta wait till at least tuesday. now i guess i will move on to my next project, custom hood!

 

I don't see why you can't run a direct wire to the batt from the alt and fuse it. I'm actually in the middle of cleaning out some old wires myself in preparation for my new alt coming in Wednesday, and that is what I plan to do.

The wire coming from the alt to the fuse box is done this way to be fused, simply bypassing that and going to the alt should be fine. Now as for that little black box that the wire goes to first, all that seems to be is a link where it can tie into another wire, instead of going straight to the battery.

My old mighty max was done like this when it got bagged and the batteries were moved underneath the bed. Just a direct fused run of 1/0 and it worked fine. Same thing for a blazer I had a couple years ago that I competed with in USACI.

 

You're right, no reason not to as long as you have everything wired up that needs power. My little black box came out as the wiring inside was so corroded it wasn't doing anything anyway.

 

pics?

 

here is a photo of swap. i hope it shows up. i cant for the life of me remember how to post pics.

 

guess it worked, ha

 

Nice! Looks good. You should cap your vacuum lines.

 

What vac lines? They are all going to something. I have those 3 things that sat on a plate on top of valve cover tucked down in the middle. Can i take all those off without making it run stupid? Seems like i took one off before and it idled super high.

 

Nice job man...looks good all you have to do is wash the engine bay super clean

 

Bring this dead horse back up, since I'll be upgrading my wiring soon.

Let me get this straight, please confirm if I'm correct or not.


1. Positive Battery Terminal to the Starter (just anywhere on it?....)
2. What wire from the Alternator? (And that goes to the Negative terminal?)
3. What part of the engine should I ground to the chassis? Like the one on the back of the engine?


Thanks gents, I have myself some projectors (and hopefully a new, smaller battery) to hook up.
The current battery is getting old, you can feel it in the starts. First cold start of this winter caused me to push start out of my garage, twice. Not a happy camper. Even for a 995CA/795CCA battery...
Next battery will be lightweight, much more compact, hopefully trying to score 450CCA on the next battery, most likely a Deka.


Thanks in advance.

 

I run from the battery post on the starter to the battery and either end to the charge post of the alternator. For the grounds I build a harness from frame to body and same frame spot to body and to the battery. You simply can not ground the whole system too much!

 

good luck with that.

 

the big 3 is:
Alternator post to battery positive
battery ground to body
engine to battery ground
use at least 8 gauge wire if you are just adding on top of the factory wire. if you are replacing the factory wire use 4 gauge or bigger.

 

I was looking at my alt wire on my 84 and noticed OE is only maybe 10g. Does upgrading this one help with keeping up with stereos and accessories?

Also what is used to mount the battery on the left side? I noticed its got a good flat but what is used for the hold down? I want to do this soon and just want to know I have everything.