Few charging questions

[Jwill130]

First post here, picked up a 85 GT a couple of months ago. Since buying it I have done a few upgrades. When I purchased the car it already had a griffin aluminum radiator and dual electric fans. The previous owner had just one fan running constantly as soon as you turned to key on. It had probelems getting to temp, so I ordered a painless dual fan wiring harness from summit and installed it. Fans work great, no issues there. While it was down, i also put in an Anderson n41 camshaft. At idle it has around 10-11 inches of Vacum. Now my problem is I when the fans come on, the idle will drop 150-200 rpm, when the A/C comes on it will want to drop even more to the point of trying to go dead. I've been reading a lot about the stock charging system, and basically it needs upgrading. The battery has the date 6/14 on it. It could be weak, but my question is does this sound like a charging issue or something else? How do I check to see if my alternator is charging like it's supposed too? I'm 99% sure it's the stock alternator, but I can upload a picture so people can be sure. Could it just be a weak battery? What's also weird is i can set the idle when it's at operating temperature and drive it for a little while and the idle will randomly go up 2-300 rpm. It may be a completely different issue, not really sure. Thanks!

[Jwill130]

Here is the car also, I know everyone likes pictures!

[stangPlus2Birds]

Oooh, I LOVE pictures of clean 4-eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Take a picture of the alternator, wiring on the back of the alternator, and the battery.

You have TONS of options.
My '86 is my good weather driver. I don't think twice about taking it on any long trip - ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD (North Pole to the desert!). But, I don't like rain/snow/etc getting on the car.


My point is that I do not go cheap on my stang.
Get a Civic if you want cheap. Imho, don't get an 20+ year old car that you know will require non-stop preventative maintenance.

So, many people look for the lowest cost solution. I look for the best solution. Being in Mass/Conn, our insurance rates are not cheap. Again, if I wanted cheap, I'd buy a 4-cylinder Civic.

With the above said, there are a ton of options for fan controllers, wiring, alternators, batteries, battery fuses, etc.
If you're looking to keep the costs down, then others can help.
If your budget for just the the above is $2,000+, then I can help.


Good Luck!

[Haystack]

$2k? I have bought 5 cars for less then that, for all 5. I drive all my cars daily and it goes from -10ºf to about 110º every year. My old 87 tbird i took up to Montana. The highest temperature it got while i was there was -2ºf and it got down to -20ºF or lower every night, not counting whatever the 40-60mph windchill would have been. Have a picture somewhere of a thermometer that read down to -40º maxed out when i started the car up there one morning. Closest weather station was almost 600 miles away. That car fired right up every morning with no issue and didnt overheat in summer with working a.c. and about 600lbs of tools in the trunk dragging the bumper. It was all stock, can't beat a mechanical fan if you want reliability.

That being said, i also had a fan clutch come apart on me on the freeway. I did a 3g swap along with a Taurus fan. It cooled the car okay on low and when i kicked on the high speed it did pretty good, easily cooled the car. The 3g is a fun swap and totally worth it if you have power issues. That being said, i have 3 cars without it and an extra 3g, electric fan, and everything to swap over. I'll wait till i have an alternator issue before i swap it, and i might just leave the mechanical fan on when i do it.

Btw, my parts store taurus alt put out 75 amps at idle and over 160 amps under full load. My stock 2g alt(which was in good shape btw) only put out 18 amps at idle and around 40 amps under load checked near the battery. At full load, it was dropping 20 amps in the wiring between the alt and battery.

The taurus fan pulled 19 amps at start up settling around 16 amps on low. From a dead stop it hit 36amps on high, settling to 22 amps. Switching from low to high with the fan spinning, it only pulled 24 amps settling to 22.

I had bad luck with fan controllers. Kept dying on me. I ended up cutting them out and tossing them. I kept the cheapie 40 amp relays from them and wired them up to a switch and never had a problem again. Later on, i found out the controllers were probably fine, it was the fuse holders. All 4 of the fuse holders from both controllers were burnt to a crisp. Funny my dollar store crimp connectors held up, but the 60 amp controller fuse holder burned up.

90% of sizing things properly and getting the correct part for the job is knowing what you have to start with. I tested a few different fans, both cheap and expensive. The taurus fan was the winner for me all around.

[KevinK]

I'm not a huge fan of the 3G upgrade but I don't have electric fans or a big amp. Either one will require upgrading the alternator. A simple test with a volt meter will tell you if the alternator is keeping up with the load. Ideally you want to stay above 12.5 volts with everything on. Don't forget the head lights, fog lights and blower fan on high. No load you may be at 14 volts. Turn everything on and see what you measure.

[wdanison43103]

I've always read that for electric fans you really should be doing the 3G swap. It's been one of the first things I've done to both my foxes and probably one of the easiest and favorite mods to the car. Who doesn't like bright headlights/dash lights?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stangPlus2Birds]

$2k?

I have better things to do than to keep replacing parts. so, I try to buy 100% new, and top quailty.

http://www.paperformance.com/200a-3g-alternator-1619ho/
200A 3G Alternator (1619HO)
$309.00
+ $40 extra for powered coated.
+ They had the from-the-factory one-wire option (just the battery wire) when I bought mine. So, no "WTF is the correct info" on how to wire an '86 Stang for a 3G alternator. And, it made for an easier and cleaner install.


http://www.paperformance.com/premium-long-9902/
Premium Long (9902)
110" Premium Wire Kit
$69.00


http://www.dccontrol.com/constant_te...ontrollers.htm
65p35 DCC Fan controller
$200
Btw, delivery is ~TWO+ MONTHS AFTER THE ORDER!
If someone doesn't like that, then do NOT order a DCC controller!


+ New Optima battery
+ New heavy gauge battery power and ground cables.
+ New fan and shroud (~$300 - $1,000+).
+ anything else

Yea, it all adds up quickly.

When I was still in college, when mammoths still roamed the earth ;-), I did an electric fan conversion on my GM.
Well, the POS flex-a-c****p controller died.
Then, the POS flex-a-c****p fan died and resulted in a blown head gasket.
So, I went from a reliable fan setup, to a POS setup that resulted in a parts failing and a blown head gasket.

Fwiw, driving in the desert isn't the hardest cooling environment for a vehicle - not by a long shot.
Driving in multi-lane-wide city bumper-to-bumper traffic, with 95F+ temps, high humidity, and asphalt roads will make the air intake go into the front of the car go well over 130F. In that case, the car is getting the air heated by the exhaust from the car on front of it, and the very hot asphalt road (makes concrete roads look like a joke).

Imho, when people buy something that is sold by it's low/lower cost, then they shouldn't be surprised by the low quality.



.

[Haystack]

I couldnt tell ya how many times the expensive part i bought with rave reviews was just garbage. With oem parts, you are looking at oem quality which is tested and is held to a standard. Vs whatever company paid the most for an ad or write up in a magazine.