Ammeter Overcharging

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by fastd

For those of us that don't know electrics as well as we should; could you explain a bit more granualarly how to run a parallel wire?

Different cars will have different "easy ways" of running a parallel wire. But remember, the goal is to have a shortcut path from the alternator to the battery without going through the ammeter. That said, the easiest way that will work on pretty much all forms of cars around here is to run a wire from the output terminal of the alternator to the positive terminal of the battery. Once you've grasped that concept, you can look at your car and say "instead of wiring it directly to the positive side of the battery, I'll wire it to the positive side of the starter solenoid that I can clearly see connects right to the battery." Likewise, you might say "instead of connecting to the output of the alternator, I'll connect to where the alternator output wire clearly connects to the fusebox." Each car will be a little different, but that's the basics. On an ERA car, connecting the alternator feed at the fuse box to the fused side of the 50 amp circuit breaker on the firewall is probably the easiest.

Originally Posted by fastd

I called holley. They say that the efi ecu pulls 6 amps but the fuel pump pulls about 15 amps; so 21 amps plus what the battery pulls would be my +25 or so.

They didn't entertain the idea of pulling power through the fuse box cause it could create "electrical noise"; I can see that with respect to the ecu but I think if I power the fuel pump through the fuse box I could solve most of my issue...thoughts?

OK, the ECU could be sensitive. MSD essentially says the same thing (run their box right off the battery), and most of us also run a big fat capacitor across the leads to filter out electrical crap like AC, spikes, etc. But I can't see how feeding a fuel pump from the other side of the ammeter would cause any harm at all. But, to be prudent, just run a 10 gauge test wire from the fuse box to your pump and see how it all runs before you make final wiring corrections.