The National Voltage Star

Easy, they are bought from my competitors, O.K. that was too easy and I could not resist. The fact is there is many reasons why a high amp alternator would fail, but just like a non high amp alternator it comes down to one reason. HEAT! A high amp alternator generates heat in how it functions, manage the heat and you will have a alternator that will last much longer. Let step back and go over what makes a high amp alternator produce more power than a normal alternator.Lets have a quick how does it work session. All alternators have a rotor, the part that connects to the pulley and spins inside the stator. The stator holds the wire windings that you can see from the outside. Together the rotor and stator produce the power in ac voltage then the rectifier converts the power to dc voltage. The process is controlled by the regulator.An alternator is basically 3 parts, generation, control, and output. To make a high amp alternator you need heavy duty windings and a lot of steel in the rotor, a tight air gap between the rotor and stator, a lot of iron in the stator core and the correct size wire, and the correct winding pattern or the wire  in the stator. Get it right and you have a high amp alternator. Providing you have a rectifier that can handle the power and a regulator that can control the power, and providing the alternator is matched to the power needs of the vehicle you will should see many years of service.Now this process generates heat because of this we need a fans to cool the alternator down, most high amp alternator have one in the front to cool the stator / rotor and one in the rear to cool the regulator and rectifier as well as help cool the stator. Now one of the reasons why our SPL-comp high amp alternators are so durable is remove the regulator and rectifier from the alternator, so you now have 2 fans cooling the stator and rotor only. This is important because the heat of the stator can damage the regulator and rectifier or at least shorten the their life.Now another great feature of our SPL-Comp high amp alternators is our heat reducing process. A lot of it is top secret but it involves cryogenics and heat treatment followed by a heat dissipating coating. The heat reducing coating works very well on its own and can be ordered for any alternator. The company that handles our heat reducing coating is Stanley Distribution and you can check them out by clicking the link.So here is a typical situation, you start the engine on a hot day, before the alternator has a chance to stabilize the battery, you crank up the system. Now the alternator must charge the battery that has been drained by the starter as well as power the stereo, so it goes to at or near full power. This causes the alternator to run hot, since it is hot outside the under hood temps are very high. Now most stock alternators have an ability to tun off the power until it cools down, it’s a way of limping you home or to the shop, most high amp alternators don’t have this so it will keep the power up, too much of this and the alternator will fail.The thing that most, if not all of our competitors don’t understand or don’t care about is this, an alternator case the final chance to dissipate the heat. If alternator-man tells you he can build you a 200 amp stock case Honda or Toyota alternator he is lying about the amperage the alternator has or you will be replacing it every 6 months or more. It just cant dissipate that much heat, even a large case Denso will just barely handle the heat produced by that much amperage. The fact is even if you spent more money than the national debt for you magical “one-of” super custom alternator tester you will not make a case that is too small dissipate heat.Now here is how an alternator dies, first the long term slow death them the catastrophic quick death. The slow death is normally 6 months to 2 years and the quick death is 3 weeks to 6 months and in some cases the second you start the engine you will know you have a problemIn a slow death repeated heating and cooling will take a toll on the regulator, the bearings, and the diodes in the rectifier. When the regulator finally gives up you will get no output, the bearing will cause noise and extra heat with will cause a catastrophic failure. The diodes will fail one at a time, there are 3 phases in the stator so there are two diodes for each phase, one positive and one negative. If one of the diodes fail you will loose one phase and that is why you have the strobe light effect in your headlights and dash lights. If you see this replace the alternator fast, its on its last leg, now you can see this damage by looking at the stator, if you see that some of the wires are black and look burned and the other look red or copper, then you have burned out one phase of the stator.A typical catastrophic failure will go something like this. The alternator will superheat which is anything above 275 degrees. The stator will expand and the air gap between the rotor and stator will increase, this will cause the field to collapse. As this happens you will see the voltage drop down to nothing. Do this once and you have forever changed the air gap and it will never be the same. Now there are wood and plastic inserts that protect the stator winding they will warp or melt. Once the stator contacts the iron core in the center it is all over.So save your self some money and time, call Rush Power Systems first!

First up is Stanley DistributionNot only are they the only company we will use for our high temp coating they also have some cool colors available. Check them out.Next as many of you know we offer discounts for members of car clubs, in that tradition we have teamed up with the Indy GTO Association, if you are into GTO’s take a look.

www.rushps.com    www.high-amp.com

Technology is funny, I am mobile & my cell phone is my business line. Last month it went south on me on a Friday morning, rather than opting for the loaner I decided to take the weekend off. What a nice quite relaxing weekend, then came Monday afternoon, I was slammed with calls asking me why I had not called back, between the shop and myself all my messages were deleted. It made me think that sometimes old school is better, don’t get me wrong, I love technology but if we ever have a EMP  attack the only thing that will be on the road is old cars with point distributors, although you will not get far because you will not be able to  get gas out of the ground. So what is an EMP? It’s short for electromagnetic pulse, when a nuclear  bomb is detonated about 2000 feet off the ground it destroys all electrical circuits that are connected to power. In  remake of “War of the Worlds” it was the reason Tom Cruise’s character could drive away, the van did not have a battery in it. Sounds science fiction, but it is real, however if you have points without a solid state controller you are fine. But then again the world loves us now.

But enough doom and gloom lets talk gauges. For some time I have been working on a way to convert amp gauges to volt meter and retain the look of the factory amp meter.  We take the stock gauge, keep the stock face and install a volt meter behind it, the center point of the gauge reflects alternators voltage set point,  to get it right I need to install a stable regulator in the alternator. So what is the big deal? Why would you want a volt meter? A volt meter will tell you before you have a problem, lets say we have a converted gauge and the center line between the “C” (charge) and “D” (discharge) is 14 volts. Now that is the set point the regulator will try to keep the voltage at. If you notice that you are above the line then you are running at higher charge rate than the regulator set point. This can be a problem with the alternator or the electrical system, but it can run that way for weeks or months so you have time to fix it and you are not dealing with it in some small town on the way back from a show. The same is true if you notice it is running below the set point line. The problem with an amp meter is it will tell you when you have a problem not before you have a problem.

Now here is a question I get all the time, what is the best way to connect two wires. A house does not see much vibration so wire nuts are ok there, but they don’t belong in anything else. Under vibration they will come loose and you will have live wires hit ground & blow fuses or burn wires, I did not say “can” I said “will” so don’t risk it. The worlds best connection is to solder, but if you don’t know how to do it then use crimp connections. I will always solder wires on bikes, boats, sandrails, dune buggies, & full race vehicles. All other connections I use crimp connections, the best connectors to use are “bell caps” they are white and look like a bell, think of a wire nut that you crimp. The reason I like them is the two wires actually touch each other and you can fill the base with silicone to keep moisture out, it’s a inexpensive version of a weather pack connection. I recommend avoiding scotch-locks however if installed correctly T-taps work every well. Always use the correct size connector. One of the best connections available are posi-locks but they are quite expensive. If you are not sure what any of this is you may want to talk to an expert before wiring your project.

well its 2 days before my dead line, and I have no idea what I am going to right about this time, nothing new here. The iTunes program on my computer keeps finding songs that force me to fire up the Ampeg tube amp, strap on the trusty Fender and jam along, and then  it hits me……Magnets! Without them I would not be using a computer, I would not need to use a computer though because there would not be a automobile. But before I get into that let me share some news, we have a new online catalog, the old page will stay there as will our blog, but if you would like to order any products just go to our catalog at www.high-amp.com and I am pleased that Rush Power Systems remains 100% capitalists, we have not nor will we agree to take any abomination bail out money!check out our new street rod alternator line. This alternator is designed to be a direct bolt in replacement for the 20 year old design you are most likely using now, it comes in a one wire design, it will give you much better power at an idle than the 10/12 si unit, and it will most likely outlast your vehicle. Amp ratting up to 200 amps. Now where would we be without magnets? When I have free time, which was I think was about 5 years ago, I enjoyed “hot rodding” electric guitars. The pickup coils are very similar to the way a HEI distributor works, and it is also what makes the HEI distributor one of the best for modification as well as everyday use. Now other factory distributors are similar to the HEI but there are subtle differences that can be problematic, but hey if the HEI will not fit your engine go with the stock unit, in my opinion they are just as good if not better than aftermarket units, in fact I believe when properly set up they will out perform aftermarket units. My only problem with the HEI is GM should have used bearings instead of bushings but that is easily fixed. So the parts involved here are, a pick up coil, magnet and metal, can anything be more simple?  As we know (if you have been paying attention) a magnet inside a coil of wire will make electricity flow, so think of the little spiky thing inside the HEI distributor as the rotor in an alternator, or for that mater just like the massive rotors inside the ac power generators found at water driven power plants. In a distributor when the tip of the spike or point is closest to the receiver it causes a pulse in the pick up coil, that pulse tells the ignition module when to fire the coil. The thousands of pluses make up a AC sine wave and that is what the tach reads to tell you what RPM the engine is at. Now the cool thing is this don’t want a big Ford ignition module under the hood? Cant fit it under the dash? Just use a HEI 4 pin module. You can mount it under the distributor or under the dash. The pins are power ground, coil trigger, pick up in and pick up out and it will work with any factory distributor of the same cylinders as the ignition module you are using. Just keep in mind the metal plate is ground as well as heat dissipation, it must be mounted on a aluminum surface using heat transfer gel. As you may have guessed the next stop on our vehicle tour of magnets is the alternator, the rotor is an electro-magnet, when the regulator applies voltage to the rotor coil inside the north and south pole pieces ac power flows in the stator, the rectifier converts it to DC and your headlights stay bright. But that is not all, there are magnets and electro-magnets found in relays, solenoids, and more. As always, if you have questions feel free to ask.

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www.rushps.com                            www.rushpowersystems.net

Let’s talk about electronic gadgets this time, first up let’s go security and convenience. I am sure most people have heard of GM’s “On Star” but did you know you can get most of the features in any car. Today’s navigation systems are very advanced and feature “call for help” options. Now it does not have crash detection or on the fly vehicle diagnosis but give them time. Navigation systems are basically just a Global Positioning System (GPS) that pinpoints your location and the location you want to go, they can give you real time traffic and route around it. But the nice thing is this; you can add a GPS system to an alarm system. With this set up you could, in real time, locate your vehicle if it is stolen. Think about that, your vehicle is stolen; you go to your computer, look up its location, call the police and tell them the location of the vehicle. And if you have kids how about this, “seems she forgot about the library like she told her old man now, but he looked it up on the computer, called her on her cell phone and told her to go to the library now”. O.K. that is off memory so if the non embellished parts are wrong don’t shot me, if Bryan Wilson did it in 80’s hair metal I would have a better memory of the lyrics. But I digress, before you run out and buy that GPS system, check with your cell phone company, many newer cell phones have real time turn by turn navigation built in to the phone. If you are only interested in navigation that may be a better way to go.

Next up video, the possibilities here are almost endless, you can get them in the headrest, visor, rear view mirror, and even motorized monitor that is hidden in the stereo head unit when the system is off. Video incorporates navigation, back up camera, satellite TV, video games, and DVD movies. Your photo display of your project could be put on a DVD and show on a monitor as a slide show. When backing up you can look at a monitor built into your rear view mirror, the camera can be at ground level so you don’t scratch the paint on a curb, hey you could even put a camera up front for the same reason. Modern cameras are very small and easy to hide so you have many options there.  As for movies and games you will need an input device for them, this can be a car audio head unit that can play DVD or a 12 volt DVD player, another easy way to do it is a power inverter that will convert DC to AC for use with a game console or DVD player. This could also be done with the alternator if you were to contact someone like…..oh….I don’t know…..Rush Power Systems, they could tell you what is involved in that.   Just remember this is where it can get expensive, set a budget before you look at the options. If you go in with Champaign taste on a beer budget you will not be happy in the end.

Now we come to audio, the big news here is CD is dead. A few years ago a 12 disk CD changer would run you $300.00+, today they give them away with a new bank account. But seriously that is not quite true, the CD will never truly go away, but digital audio holds the market share and will continue to do so. There are several different digital audio formats but for sake of discussion we will refer to them as MP3. The fact is this digital mp3 audio will never have the same sound quality as a CD, however a CD will hold at best 20 songs. I have about 15,000 songs on my 80 gig iPod and I have room for many more, so it is easy to see why digital audio is so popular. Many newer head units can directly interface with a portable hard drive or an mp3 player, many mp3 players will handle video. So if you have audio and video capabilities in your vehicle you can have you entire volume of entertainment in something that will fit into your pocket. In my opinion the future of radio is dead, sorry but here are the facts. HD radio is better but it does not seem to gain major traction, talk radio is driving the industry and the local radio stations hosting the programs seem hell bent on offending the listeners of the programs they are hosting. This along with the thereat of the “fairness doctrine” and I predict overwhelming sales in satellite radio, if you are thinking of buying one I say now would be a great time. Of course your mileage may vary, I am just reporting on what I see. Providing HD radio does not take over the way HD TV is then I suppose there will be a place for over the air radio, just not sure what form it will need to evolve into to survive. But then again as long as we are printing money like it was news paper (and it will have the same value soon) perhaps big radio needs a bail out!

On a side note, December was very hard as my mother in law was battling cancer and she lost the battle in the days before the New Year. My wife and I would like to thank everyone who called and sent notes, they were greatly appreciated.

Our dual alternator bracket kit just got cleaner and easer, Rush Power Systems has been the world leader in multiple alternator charging systems, in fact our very first customer was a dual alternator on a Chevy truck. We have designed and built dual alternator brackets for almost any vehicle you can think of.  Now for some reason the 4.7 Liter engine founded in Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep has not been a popular bracket kit for us, because of this we have been using our original design from when the engine was first introduced. We have Finlay had some time to turn Ken the mad scientist of brackets loose on a redesign of  the single belt dual alternator bracket kit. What we have is a kit that is easier to install, and provides better belt wrap on the pulleys. Rush Power Systems is the world’s best source for dual alternator brackets, if we have not built one for your vehicle we can custom design something for you. Just give us a call or stop by our site.

Sadly in some cases this is true, at least once a month someone sends me a “high amp” alternator and asks me to test it and at least once a week I get an e-mail just like this one;

I have edited the name so that the little weasels will not sue me and sadly this is just one letter from a stack of hundreds. This goes on every day, so why does this happen? There are three factors in the high amp alternator scam, they are price, cost, and greed. Lets take them one by one.Price:

Have you ever wanted to know exactly how much power your system needs? We use a 10% rule, if you have 100 watts you need 10 amps. We do this because it will give you more power than you need, just like the factory does.

Why do this? Because if you have need of 100 amps and you have a 100 amps alternator you will be at full power all the time and this will lead to a short alternator life. But if you have more power than you need you will not be at full power and the alternator will last longer.But this does not address voltage effects on amperage, that is why we created this tool.(Click on the link to see the tool on our web site, http://www.rushps.com/tools.html )

Without going into a complected analysis of how alternators work, let me put it in plain English, the higher the system voltage is, the lower the amp requirements are.

Lets look at this example; we have 1500 watts at say 12.5 volts we get the following results, we would need 120 amps and we would expect to see .104167 ohms resistance. To make this easier we are not going to look at the ohms at this time.

But now lets hit reset and punch in the following numbers. Lets say 16 volts and the same 1500 watts, now we see we only need 93.75 amps, a reduction of almost 30 amps!

Now I know what you are thinking, “94 amps for 1500 watts? That it? I have a 100 amp stock alternator so I am fine.

Well not quite, you need to add your factory alternators power to the amp load, in other words you need a 194 amp alternator to stay ahead, but wait there is more, most factory alternators have set points at 14.5 volts, so lets hit reset and try that, 1500 watts at 14.5 volts = 103.45 + factory power of 100 amps and you need 203 amp alternator.

So what If you only have 500 watts? 500 watts at 14.5 volts = 34.48 amps + 100 amps for vehicle needs and you have 135 amps of which you are trying to power with 100 a 100 amp alternator and that is why your head lights dim.

So what does all this mean?

Don’t waist you money on caps, and extra batteries! If you start with the correct alternator you will not need extra batteries and caps.

The other thing we learn from this is how amp manufactures can play with the numbers. Always read the specs, if your amp  spec sheet shows 1000 watts at 14 volts then you need to have 14 volts to get the 1000 watts, less volts and you get less watts and more volts will give you more power.

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www.rushps.com                            www.rushpowersystems.net

I am frequently asked how I come up with the topics that I cover here, usually it involves 2 hours of staring at the computer on the day it is due, but this time is different. This one was inspired by my two daughters, each one has a Jeep. The first is an 89’ Jeep Cherokee with an intermittent no power at the fuel pump and the second one is a Power Wheels battery powered Jeep that is proudly owned by my youngest. Now both are ones I should probably just junk but I refuse to be beaten, I often say “I might let you win the battle, but you will never win the war!” So what does this have to do with your street rod? Read on and you will find out.

Let’s start with the 89’ Jeep, rule #1 of electricity is it will take path of least resistance. So when you have something that should have power and does not, start with at the end of the circuit and work back, in this case the fuel pump. Back in the days of the early fuel injection and in the case of most aftermarket fuel injection systems, the number one problem was and is too many items powered by not enough wires. As you add electrical items to a single power source you add resistance to the systems as well as you drop the line voltage. You may be able to power 500 Christmas lights on your tree, but that is AC power and it works very differently than DC. If you have 14 volts (engine running) in a wire and you have 5 items powered by that wire you are dropping the available voltage to all items. The drop in voltage will cause the wires to overheat and overtime the repeated overheating will cause resistance in the wires. If you remember from last issue with the dumba** janitor and his “too many relays” comment you already know how to fix this problem. That’s right, I found the resistance point in the wire, (often at a junction point) by working back from the fuel pump, I cut out the resistance point and install a relay, and older daughter drives her Jeep and no longer bugs me to drive mine.

Now the big question, what does a Power Wheels toy have to do with a street rod? Well first a little background here, the Jeep uses 2 batteries that are 6 volt each, together they make 12 volts. It is done this way because it is a more efficient way to produce “play time”, you have more reserve capacity so you charge it less. When it is not charged for some time the batteries will go dead, usually to around 1 volt, sound like a red top battery that you forgot to unhook at the end of last season? Both battery setups are gel batteries, the toy Jeep is sealed and the red top is not, but they both have the same charge rates and you can revive them from one volt or less. There are two ways to do it, time or amps. You can charge a dead red top using a 2 amp charge but you will need to do so for 1 to 2 weeks to get it back to 12 volts. The second option is the way the manufacture recommends 60 to 100 amps, check every hour for progress, this will usually take 2 to 4 hours. Now I know what you are thinking, “I will just jump start the engine and let the alternator charge it” if you do that you will dramatically shorten the life of the alternator, remember it’s a battery maintainer not a battery charger. Now I have had a lot of people ask me about how I personally do it, I need to clear something up here. It’s true that I connect a good red top directly to a dead red top with jumper cables for about an hour, then charge each battery back to 12.5 volts.  Well if you don’t know what you are doing then charging batteries the way I do it is a very bad idea, I use jumper cables that I personally built, and I have the test equipment and knowledge to do it, I know which battery is stable enough to handle it. So don’t try this at home, if you get an unstable battery it will explode on you! Keep in mind some batteries can’t be saved, but at $150 for a new one its worth 2 amps for 2 weeks to try to save it. Now after you have brought it back to life you will need to use it, the battery will be unstable for a while. If you don’t start the engine every day for a couple of weeks or better yet drive it each day for about a week you will have a dead battery again. In my daughters Jeep I could not save one of the batteries so I went with 2 new batteries 12 amp hour each, now it’s fast! First thing she did was go as fast in reverse as she could and slam it into high speed drive and yes this smoked the tires! Mom is less than happy, but I could not be more proud, in fact I think I will need to buy a new snow blower as I may need the engine out of the old one for an 1/8 mi rail car.

Well it looks like I need to eat a little crow, after a nice e-mail from my good friend Buddha that in no way ripped me a new one, I now understand the building has been fully fumigated and all the cockroaches are gone! Viva la Rod Garage! Can I have my Pepsi now?

Here is a little secret going back for years what I guess 10 years now you could get factory dual alternators on Ford and GM Diesel trucks, but not on Dodge diesel trucks. What’s up with that Dodge? Are Dodge trucks to pretty to do snow plow work? Or haul work? If you own one you know that is not the case and if you are using it for work you also know the single alternator is a little lacking in the power department. There is actually a good reason why they don’t offer one, it has to do with the fact that the ecu controls the alternator and the ecu does not have the ability to control two alternators.

Well not to worry Dodge, We stepped up to the plate to help you out. Rush Power Systems is proud to offer a dual alternator bracket kit that is expandable, in other words we can go to a 3 or 4 alternator set up if needed, you listening bass heads? But lets concentrate on the dual alternator for now. Its important to note that this is not a modified air pump bracket that requires a separate “v” belt. This is a true dual alternator bracket kit that uses a single serpentine belt. Just like a factory set up would.

So what is so great about a dual alternator? Well nothing if your ram is a grocery getter, but if you use it for work, snow plow, construction, spend a lot of time at idle, have extra load from stereo or short wave radio, oh and you like to have the headlights work at nigh, well then you know what I am talking about. The fact is this, you can go from a single alternator with 130 amps to a dual alternator with a total of 260 to 400 amps or more, and we can set them up so that you would have around 225 amps at idle.

Now for you who do not have a Dodge diesel truck, fear not my friend, we can dual alternator anything. Its true that sometimes dual alternators are too expensive, we understand that and we can help. How about a single alternator that is 300 to 350 amps? With up to 190 amps at idle? Hey we are here to help you, just tell us what you need, we will tell you the facts about charging systems and you can make an informed decision on what you need. Just send us your question info@rushps.com or check out our site www.rushps.com