[Benjamin]

The tricky part seemed to be the theory behind one-wire, internally regulated alternators and the use and installation of these units. I had stumbled upon Mad Enterprises via a 10-year old article in Hot Rod Magazine, and some of the literature on his website got me thinking about all of the different things that went into this install/upgrade. As I said before, I picked up a Full Power kit from Mad Enterprises and at that time I talked on the phone with Mark, the owner and brains behind the operation, and read some of his literature as well. I thought he had some valid points and a lot of my rant about 1-wire alternators, wire sizing, and current load is just my interpretation of his theories.

Cue the rant:

In short, most, if not all, high-performance one-wire alternator manufacturers tell you to run a big heavy gauge charge wire from the BAT post on the alternator to the positive post on your battery. (I actually bought a 7 ft long 6 gauge Powermaster charge wire when I bought the alternator as I was being steered down this path at the beginning.)

My best explanation of the problem with this approach is that the main power feed to the dash/firewall/factory fuse panel just got about 4 to 6 feet longer, and if the only new wire you installed was the charge wire to the battery, you are running power back to the main power feed through a wire that may not be adequately sized for the load.