My lights are diming horrid so I'm gonna try the big 3 and see what it does. Ground looked barely 10g so it should help. Couldn't see where the power wire goes onto the alt though. Looks pretty hard to get at. Anyone done one so I know what to expect when I get around to it?

 

You have to get at the wire from under the car. It is a pain but worth it. Also the factory power wire on the factory deck harness is only 7 amps. Run a new deck power wire, as well. It will give you a more constant pre-out voltage...cheers!

 

OH son of a b****!
I didn't want to have to go through all that on my Saturday. Raising up the car and all.
Thanks fo the reply, I'll take a look under there tomorrow.
I had to run a new power wire to the deck anyways with GM's brainchilds running the chime/warnings through the factory deck and all.

 

Hardwrkr:

When you get it done, would ya mind letting me know where things run, or take some pics, I have a 2000 GT and I want to swap out power and ground as well...I have been scouring the web for diagrams, but I can't find a damn thing!!

Thanks!!

~Andrew

 

Well this is what I found after looking at the car from every angle. Compressor pump is in the way of getting at the alternator and the only other way to it is if I were to take the oil filter off I might have enough room to connect on to it. Factory warranty doesn't allow me to do my own oil changes so I never have it off but I suppose I could just for the sake of changing the wire. Anyways, The bat to ground is easy enough to get at so I left the factory one there after cleaning it and added a 4g from the bat to the factory ground (cleaned it too) and it took all of a couple minutes. Put gold terminals on the battery. Just these two mods helped the dimming lights considerably. I've decided to add a bigger wire to the alt as soon as it gives way cause it looks to be a pain to get it out so I only wanna do it once. Plus I'm kinda lazy....

 

so you left the factory bat to ground?? is there a reason for that?

 

Factory batt to ground was 8g so I added a 4g to it and cleaned up the factory wiring. The only reason I left it was because the more wire the better.

 

Cool.....well I will be going with 1/0 so I am just gonna get rid of the factory wire I think...I looked at the alt and I can't see where the wire goes either...****ty cz I want to change it all out!

 

Just changed the batt in my Camry and while checking out all the wires I noticed that the +ve to alt wire first goes to a fuse box nearby. Opened the cover and there was a 100amp fuse/breaker for the alt.
Don't know about the cavs but check out the fuse boxes under the hood for the alt. The +ve wire probably goes there first.

Gene

 

This was mentioned in a topic here not too long ago and most people agreed that running a higher guage wire between the batt and alt to support charging didn't require a fuse whether it was originally that way or not.