65 amp alternator, is it enough?

[Black Smokin' Diesel]

Soooo my alternator crapped out last weekend, I've been recharging the battery every two days now. Needless to say I'm tired of this.

Now, I have the basic 65 amp alt. I have a rather powerful sound system with a 300W sub mated to a 1200W amp. I soon will upgrade my current headlights (9004 aeros) to H4 westy buckets, relayed of course. And with the TD swap this spring/summer, I'll be running a bunch of gauges (oil temp & pressure, volt, EGT, tach and boost), not that they use a lot of power.

Being a diesel I know it doesnt take much power to make it run (basically 12V to the fuel pump solenoid is enough :wink: ), unlike gassers with their silly sparkplugs, ECU and knock sensors...

So my question is: Is the 65amps enough to run all this or should I get the 90amp version?

BTW I have a 1000amp battery, it's about two years old. All the wiring and connections are new, gauge 4 from alt to starter and gauge 1 from the starter to the battery. The battery will soon be relocated to the trunk with gauge 1 wiring all around.

[Maarten]

More is always better but I think the 65A will hold up fust fine if you don't "park and boom" a lot

[regcheeseman]

a 300W sub mounted to a 1200W amp ??  :lol:

so that means about 100W consumption if you have it wound up.

+ another 200W for everything else =300W

300w / 12V = 25A total

Leaves you 40A for bit's I've not thought of .....wipers, rear window demist, heater, horn, etc etc

You'll be fine.

Your battery doesn't sound to good, dying in such a short time, is it rarely used or very cold?

[Black Smokin' Diesel]

a 300W sub mounted to a 1200W amp ??  :lol:

so that means about 100W consumption if you have it wound up.

+ another 200W for everything else =300W

300w / 12V = 25A total

Leaves you 40A for bit's I've not thought of .....wipers, rear window demist, heater, horn, etc etc

You'll be fine.

Your battery doesn't sound to good, dying in such a short time, is it rarely used or very cold?

Just keeping room for improvement :wink: I got the amp for pretty cheap.

Don't worry about the battery, I have a night job so the healights are always on, plus it's pretty humid right now so the heater is always at maximum. And the glow plugs. And the wipers because it's been raining a bit. I don't use the stereo tho.

I'm not waiting for the battery to be completely dead, I don't want to be stuck at work at 5am :?

The battery is strong enough to crank the engine 70 times in -25C without any fade (yeah three dead glow plugs, now fixed).

Thanks for the bit of maths I guess I should be fine then!

[bryanbryan89x]

haha park and boom