My buddy and I put in the HEI system this weekend using the forum How-To post. Here's what it looks like.





Sadly, when I went to drive it yesterday evening, the battery was COMPLETELY dead! I don't know what happened.

I followed this diagram with two minor exceptions: I used an inline fuse instead of a fuse box, and I grounded to the coil bracket and not the alternator. Any ideas what I did wrong?

The alternator is a 90A out of a Dodge Omni. Initially, I hooked it up to the lead that has a red wire attached to it (visible in the second pic), and the car ran extremely rough. I took it out and connected it to the lead on top with the black wire connected to it (as seen in the first pic) and the engine leveled out and ran smooth. Is it possible I screwed up the alternator?

If you would please help, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

Are you actually using a Switched 12 to power the HEI. If not it will kill the battery overnight.
02.
Frank

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Scrapple: Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
73 Duster - Race Car
66 Dart Wagon - DD
178" FED
82 D150
All Slant powered

Initially you hooked what up to the lead that has a red wire attached to it…?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Sorry, Dan. I hooked the inline fuse that leads to the relay up to the alternator lead, visible in image 2, which has a red wire leading off it. Turns out that wasn't a power lead, so I changed it to the lead you can see it attached to in image 1.

Are there switched and unswitched leads off the alternator? Sorry if that's a dumb question. I've never run anything off an alternator before.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

The two small terminals nearer the centre of the rear of the alternator are field terminals. Don't hook anything up to these except field wires (one of these terminals gets grounded if you're running a pre-'70 style regulator). The big threaded-stud terminal is the B+, or output terminal. It is electrically common with the battery's positive terminal. No problem using this for a power feed. But it is live all the time, not just when the key is switched on. It sounds as if your relay might not be hooked up correctly; make sure its #86 terminal is connected to a switched +12v source, that is only live when the key is on. #85 should be grounded, #30 should go via a fuse to B+ (alternator output terminal is fine), and #87 goes to the module/coil power terminals.

If your relay #86 presently connects to an always-live +12v source, it'll drain the battery overnight.

Also, careful with that 90A alternator in an unmodified stock charging system. Standard ~12ga charging wire and an unmodified ammeter aren't a good mix with a high-amp alternator. You'll read all kinds of scare stories about how the ammeter is a ticking time bomb just a-waitin' to burn your car to a crisp. Wrong. The stock ammeter is perfectly adequate for stock charging systems...especially if the connections are cleaned and tightened once every couple of decades whether they need it or not. Throw a high-output alternator into an otherwise-stock system, and yeah, things are going to burn up as soon as you hit a high-charge condition (battery goes bad, or needs topped up after extended cranking or a couple of hours with the lights left on, etc.). That's not because the stock system is "dangerous", it's because tossing a high-output alternator into a stock system is the wrong way to do it. The '73-'76 A-bodies with heated backglass got 65-amp alternators and 8-gauge main charging cables separate from the rest of the engine wiring harness...right from the factory. And yet guys will toss big alternators in their cars without changing anything else, and then blame the predictable result on the stock system being "dangerous".

Go take a look at R/T Engineering. They can rework stock ammeters to handle up to 70 amps efficiently, and they can convert stock ammeters into voltmeters (complete with a new gauge face that looks like factory equipment). Their website's got a bunch of really good info on it, but you have to mouse around awhile to find it; the organisation isn't completely obvious. For example, I know there's a pic of one of their voltmeter conversions somewhere on the site, but I can't find it at the moment! Be sure to see this page. They actually have intelligent, Mopar-owning and -driving people who actually answer the phone, so if you get fed up trying to find what you want on the site, call them. I've got one of their upgraded ammeters waiting to go into my '73.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks for the help, Dan! I can't tell for sure until I get home, but from the pictures I took, everything looks to be hooked up correctly, but I'm going to double check when I get back.

The red wire Should be #30, which is run to the alternator. Which means #85 should be the black wire which I ran to the coil bracket as seen in pic 1. The green one (#86) is connected to the lead that connected to the positive terminal of the coil. Is that where I went wrong?

Also, this relay came with 2 #87 connectors (White and Yellow.) White (the top #87) runs to the pink coil wire on the grey connector of the coil. The yellow (middle connector on the relay) was cut short and will be sealed off when the shrink tubing goes on.

As for my regulator and ammeter, this is something I had fixed almost two years ago when I was scared to do any work on my car. The chap that did the job for me put in a Duraspark (I know, I know.) regulator and shunted my ammeter, so it twitches a little when it's charging or discharging, but it's not exactly reliable for determining anything. I'll look into those links you mentioned, Dan. R/T sounds like good people. Thanks again for your help.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

I'm not sure what your overall wiring configuration looks like under the hood. #86 needs to see +12v when (and only when) the ignition is switched on.
That'll be fine.
Huh? Duraspark is Ford's name for their electronic ignition system of the 1970s and '80s. It has nothing to do with voltage regulation. Do you mean he used an AutoZone "Duralast" item?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I'm sorry, I meant the lead that ran to the positive terminal of the old coil. From the resistor to the coil in the old setup, everything was stock (I replaced the 1964 coil with a slightly newer one, but the connections were all the same), and I thought the lead that ran to the coil came via the ballast resistor and was switched. Once again, I'm probably wrong. I'll research that tonight and see if I can find another switched lead from somewhere.
My apologies again. I'm not familiar with all of Ford's terminologies. The gentleman that installed my alternator and shunted the ammeter switched my voltage regulator out with something that looks like this:


He told me it was part of Ford's Duraspark system ("the best in the world!") and tried to talk me into redoing everything electric with Ford parts. Fortunately, I thought better of this.

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant

Mystery solved! Sort of. Once we got all the wiring problems taken care of, the leads were tested and...everything was wired correctly. The likely culprit is a bad ground. I have since replaced the ground strap and shored up a lot of questionable circuits to make sure they were grounded properly to the chassis and/or engine block. Thanks again for all your helpful advice!

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Chuck and the Flying Valiant