When doing the big three upgrade do you have to run a fuse on the wire you are running from the alt to the batt....some sites i seen it and others they didnt put one on....and if you do have to put a fuse in between what size should the fuse be...to match the wire gauge or to match the amps on the alt...thanks

 

Your fuse should either match the capacity of your wire or the be slightly larger than your alternator's output, whichever is lower (but it wouldn't make sense to have a wire that couldn't handle the altnerator's output lol). It's a good idea to have one as it's protecting both the battery and the alternator.

 

Anytime you use an inline fuse MAKE SURE TO USE A FUSE RATED JUST BELOW THE MAX CURRENT CAPACITY OF THE WIRE IT'S CONNECTED TO. It's not necessary to fuse it, but it wouldn't hurt if you did.

 

Im going to be doing the big 3 this weekend. Does anyone know where the chassis/engine block ground is orginally located?

 

I couldn't locate it, didn't really try all that hard either but I did look around a good bit. If I were you, I wouldn't remove it though even if you do find it. Just find another spot to add in the new wire and call it a day

 

On my 01 the ground is towards the front of the car and is very very difficult to get to/loosen, which brings me to my question, where is a good place to ground it to on the block? Could someone post a picture. I manged to upgrade the fuse to the chassis which is about 6 inches long of wire, was very easy, but I've yet to sand it to bare metal.

I couldn't manage to change out the stock power wire so I added a new lead straight from the battery to the alt. I also couldn't change the power from the battery to the aux posts. The bolt simply won't loosen up which is very frustrating. Maybe it's just me but IMO GM did a terrible job on their electrical system lol

Also I'm reading 13.8X volts and I'm not sure why. At first I just managed to change the ground to the chassis, had a reading around 14.5X volts, added the extra lead from the alt to the batt, got a reading around 13.5X. Took it off, no change. I'm not sure what's going on but it's very frustrating. Sorry for the long post

Edit: Thinking about the voltage problem, when I got the 14.XX reading it was a cold start therefore the rpms were higher which may have caused the better/higher reading. The other times the car was already warmed up and the rpms were lower. Do you think my idle speed is too low?

 

The Alternator doesnt fully kick in till about 1500RPMs thats why it reads higher than.

 

Could someone help me with this? I have to do it but im confused on how I should do it. The pictures that bigriggs posted helps alot, but dbl said that the chassis to ground is wrong? Does anyone have pictures in how they grounded the engine properly, also is the negative battery terminal to that classic ground right then? And what size fuse should you use for 0 gauge wiring ?