I know I was the one all hyped up about this mod so I did some reseach today and found out that......

BRENT9Z IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!

I am sorry to burst your bubble guys but the fact is that One horsepower of mechanical power translates to 746 watts of electrical power.


If my alternator is delivering full power the maximum wattage would be 130 amps at 13.8 volts equals 1794 watts total and this would happen only if the battery was not conected and all the possible load was being drained out the alternator. 1794 watts divided by the per horsepower figure equal a total of
an overwelmingly........2.40 horsepower!!

There is energy lost to heat, friction, and friction to air by the Alternators fan. Even at WOT the alternator wont be delivering its full power either since its only feeding the voltage difference between 13.8 and 12volts supplied by the battery.


Even if I disconected the Alternator electronically we would still have the mechanical friction/alternator internal fan friction to air/and mass resistance to acceleration that the engine has to handle. I think we would get more horsepower by just removing the heavy battery and momentarily replace it with a Motorcycle battery as a voltage buffer. (weight savings) than with the Alternator mod.


If you guys still want those 2 horsepower... the Autoparts sell an ignition cut off switch.... just rig four of the 1 ohm 10 watt resistors (conected in parallel to obtain a total of 0.25 ohm resistance) in series with the switch positive and negative contacts. This will cut the maximum delivery power of the alternator down to rougly 5amps to the battery. This just to keep your battery from dying while at the stage lines. The switch will have to be conected between the alternator and the Battery IN SERIES. if you conect any positive and negative lines there in parallel you gunna blow something up!!! do it at your own risk.

In my own opinion its not worth it. Not by far.


Thank you guys.

Marvin

 

Wow, seems like a totally pointless mod. LS1speed.com as something called a V-Step that steps your alternator up 2.4volts at 70% throttle. Its like $69 and that seems like a good idea for you underdrive guys....

Now if you could make the alternator work like an air conditioning compressor clutch.. THEN you'd have something going for you...

 

so the power steering pump is sucking all that power away?

 

its easy enough to pop your belt real quick if you want. I think that would help a lot. Then you eliminate ALL the drag on the crank...

 

Electronic power seems to be way cheaper than Mechanical horsepower, but dont take the long road to the Patent House when it comes to Electronic Steering Pumps. Someone already did that and There are companys already producing parts for it.

In the Future replacing the mechanical steering pump with an electronic one sounds very promising. At least the Car manufacturers are already all over it.

The Electric water pump is a great idea, if it could only have a back up coil and its life span would more like double I dont want to replace my mechanical one just yet. but from horsepower savings stand point is defenetely worthwhile.


Here is the web page address for the Electronic power steering



http://www.irf.com/product-info/auto/stdeps.html


I defenetely want one of those in my Camaro.

Marvin

 

Once 24v power systems become the standard you will begin so see a whole mess load of electronic equipment...