jedg

Thanks, I thought this is where it went, but wanted to be sure.

Growlz

That's all I did when I was having issues on my '09. It was night and day difference when starting. I swear it even took away the slight hesitation you sometimes get when you turn the key that I have had on all my JK's.

Tactical_Geek

Oh man, I'm gonna have to try this. I swear almost every other time I turn they key on my '08 Sahara I just get a "click" and have to turn it off, wriggle the shifter and try again. Is that what this is supposed to fix?

kejtar

If you wriggle the shifter to start that sounds like the neutral safety switch which is different.

Rednroll

The way to make sense of this upgrade is to remember that eletricity always flows in a loop.

It's a loop that starts at your pos battery terminal and circles around back to the neg terminal.

Anything within that loop becomes a potential weak link of limiting max current draw. You need to think of the loop the electricity will flow through.

So here's the basic loop within the big 3 upgrade.

(*edited to clear up some confusion)
1. Batt POS post > alternator.
2. Alternator output > the loads (lights, winch, amplifiers, beer cooler, etc)
3. Load> Chassis
4. Chassis > Neg battery terminal.
5. NEG batt terminal > internal Battery connection POS bat terminal.
6. Goto step 1, repeat.

Cars all have a CHASSIS GROUND. Alls that means is that the NEG batt terminal is connected to the chassis, ie frame. So that is the 1st stage of beefing up is that connection (step 4)

Then you want to beef up the connection between the batt POS term and the alt (step 1)

Then you want to beef up the connection from the alt to the loads (step 2)

Since the Batt POS is already connected to the alt, you can then connect a larger wire from the POS batt terminal to your load.

You don't need a wire from the alt bracket to the chassis. Just ask yourself, is that wire you would add have more metal material thickness then the metal that is already there?

The answer to that is that you have a thick alt bracket, which connects to the engine block. The engine block is a HUGE piece of metal. The engine block then bolts to the chassis with 4 huge engine mount bolts. The Chassis is a big piece of metal which is then connected to the NEG term of the BATT by the thicker wire you added in the big 3 upgrade.

So skip that connection from the alt bracket to the chassis, you're just wasting your time. ANY size wire connection you make there will not be thicker than the metal that's already there between the bracket to chassis. There is no "Big 4" unless your alternator and bracket that connects to the alt is made of plastic which it obviously is not. All the metal in the vehicle is a HUGE metal conductor that is all interconnected. You can't buy a wire that will net you more metal than all the metal on a vehicle. That would be like pissing on a forest fire while standing next to a bunch of fire trucks and thinking you made a significant contribution to putting out the fire.

kejtar

ok, that's not that simple because last time I checked engine sits on engine mounts which have rubber on them and you don't have a direct engine block to the chassis connection in the manner that you have described. While I can see the alternator bracket to chassis and engine block to chassis being redundant, I don't see how you can get around having at least one of those connections there.

You could argue that the bolts that connect the bracket to the engine mounts make a connection on the sleeve that's in the rubber BUT that sleeve does not have a connection to the bracket as it sits in rubber....

Rednroll

Go look at some engine mounts. They all have large bolts that go through those rubber mounts where one end of the bolt touches the engine mount brackets and other fastens to holes/brackets that are connected to the chassis. Often 2-3 bolts per mount times 2 to 4 mounts.

Let's also not forget, the engine connects to the trans, the trans to the T-case and drive shafts, the drive shafts to your axles, the axles to the springs, the springs to spring buckets, Spring buckets to the chassis. Then there's all the additional metal parts that connect to the axles and then to the chassis. You haven't thought this through very much, if you honestly believe there is more metal in a single piece of wire connected from the alt to the chasis than there is between the engine block where the alternator mounts to, and the chassis. You're busy focusing on pissing on the forest fire with the entire fire department standing right next to you.

Rednroll

Some things I can think of where you may benefit.

1. Cold morning starts (More power would be delivered from the battery to the starter).
2. Winch pulling power (More power could be delivered to the winch)
3. Faster Battery Recharge/Potential Increased battery life. It would take shorter drive distances to fully recharge your battery, and a fully charge battery is a happy battery, thus increased battery life is not out of the question. Think along the lines of recharging your cell phone battery. A 1amp phone charger, will not recharge your cell phone battery faster than a 2 Amp charger, and that's essentially what you're doing. You're increasing the current delivery capacity capability of your electrical system.

kejtar

I did: so the engine mounts do corrode where they touch and don't offer a reliable connection. The driveshafts though sit on the bearings which as a ground is a bad idea because if the electricity flows through them you could damage the bearings

Rednroll

Well, let's just hope the majority of that electrical current path flows from the trans through the trans hangers, trans skid plate and then to the chassis so the majority of current doesn't reach those bearings.