So I never had any issues with my stock alternator, but when I purchased the car in January of this year, it came with some custom made box with Subs, a couple tweeter, two big speakers, and two different amps attached to it. The stock rear 6x8 speakers were replaced with Rockford Fosgate 6x9 speakers, with a Sony head unit that has SiriusXM and BT. I'm no audiophile and that massive box in my hatch was merely obstructing my view. So I found someone to buy it off me and only kept the two RF rear speakers and Sony head unit. Although I don't have an amp or have anything connected as I plan to purchased 2 speakers for the doors and custom mount them with 87-93 grilles.
Anyways, all this got me thinking that this dingus was smart enough to build a pretty nice custom made sub box and was able to do all the wiring himself to the amps and whatever else had to be done, but didn't bother with the alternator. I thought I would pick up a new and improved alternator when I got the chance. Fast forward a couple months and I decided to pick up a PA Performance 130 Amp alternator since I wanted an American made piece, and it even has a lifetime warranty. Their customer service is great too, I contacted them via phone and talked to one of their support staff and I asked the guy I was speaking with if I had to buy their $70 kit that included 4G wire and a 200 amp fuse/box or just purchase my own 4G wire and 200 amp fuse/box to keep the warranty in tact and he was very straight with me and said just buy your own wire and fuse/box and wire it up correctly and you'll be good to go. The install was straight forward and it was big help having my friend with me on the install since we needed to cut the alternator bracket with a sawsall to fit the extra space the bigger alternator took up. It was also a major help being able to look at his engine bay for reference just to make sure we were getting everything done correctly. He also has an 86 GT, but in Light Regatta Blue w/ a 331 Stroker, 03 Cobra IRS, Bilstein Struts, Baer 4 POTs, and much much more compared to mine. My car handles like a Chevy Suburban compared to his car.
Here's the finished job. I still have to finish cleaning up some of the wiring tuck, the wires from the 3G connector were much longer than I thought they would be, so rather than zip tie them, i'm just going to place them in wire loom to make it look cleaner.
Measured it with a volt meter and it put out a nice 14.75 volts after the install. I wish I would've measured the voltage output before, but, oops.
Here's the latest pic of the car. I know, I know, it needs to be lowered desperately.
Here's the old alternator and it also shows the other battery which actually didn't need to be changed, but I just liked the way the Ford Motorcraft battery looked in all honestly and it has a nice warranty.
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