I have a big heavy car 3900lbs/ 475hp. my question is, is it any benefit? manual steering, electric water pump. 140amp alternator is the only belt drive on the motor. i put it on a switch so i can take it off line during a run. and try and remember to turn it back on after the run..lol at idle it pulls the motor down a little as i turn it off and on. Cheers!
For consistency, I always found that running a charging system, to insure full voltage at the coil was best. Not to mention that in the late rounds, you have no time to charge. JW
Keep the alt connected, the gain is negligible. I run alternators on both race cars and in later rounds especially when we're hot lapped you don't worry about a low battery. gary
I agree with the above comments. Never ran our car without an alternator but at one time the alternator was bad and wouldn't charge intermittently. We didn't notice this and we had some issues going down the track with the car breaking up/ down on power. I know there's plenty of guys not running alternators but they are also charging between rounds to ensure solid power while making a pass.
Thanks for your in put guys! switch is coming out 1 less thing to break, go wrong, or forget about. Cheers!
Rather it's a 55 amp or 200+ amp alternator, it's only going to pull as many amps as the electrical system is demanding. As other's mention, you want to make sure you have good power to the ignition coil as under full load at WOT is when their is the most resistance to spark. At least with the 140 amp alternator, if you are shutting it off, when you flip it back on it would charge the battery a lot faster than a 55-65 amp alternator would because demand would be higher.
the car has 2-Big Spal radiator fans, 1 small Spal trans cooler fan and electric water pump. 2-Yellow top batteries.
You can always switch it off at the lights and turn it on at the end, that is just switch off the fans and water pump
Thank you Hot Rod Magazine... This month they have a small story on the subject. Cheers! BTW i put it back to stock..
