How much power does an alternator produce

Bosch are excellent units but do not come in all of the different mounts typically required by different engines.
Their warranty was great too.

The Series 60 engine needs an alternator that mounts with 'ear' tabs and needs 4 of them.
The quad mount or 3-ear mount wont work, so I couldnt even consider Bosch at the time.....

Plus, since my orig Delco was cracked, it was not valid as a core.
I had to buy a new Delco 36SI and pay the 'new' price....

 

I was looking at the brochure for the Delco 36SI that Hanadarko referenced. It shows a substantial gain in the mpg, being 70% efficient compared to the previous models 60%. A saving of $756 over 500k mi by their calculation. With a 3 Years / 350,000 Miles warranty. The BOSCH AL9960LH that Diesel Dave got, is also listed at 70% efficient in their brochure, claiming a possible saving of $400 per 100k miles. With a 24 month / 250,000 Miles warranty. The Delco shows using a remote sensing wire from the battery to adjust the output, to account for voltage drop in the cable and connections to the battery, whereas the Bosch doesn't. How, or if that affects the quality of the charge that the battery ultimately receives, is above what my two to three remaining brain cells can deal with.

 

I did hook this line up. It remains unclear EXACTLY how this is supposed to help, but here is what I have concluded.
Running an extra dedicated wire supposedly eliminates connection loss and resistance which can falsely lead the alternator to read a different voltage than it's supposed to.

In their own example, they show a reading of 14.0v at the battery using the regular wiring vs a 14.5v reading
at the dedicated remote sense line.

Supposedly, that informs the alternator supposedly more accurately how to supposedly charge and
change the voltage of the supposed charge.



Now, with that said, I measured the voltage at the back of the alternator via the stock cable
and read 13.4v.
I then measured the voltage at the dedicate wire and read 13.6v.
Will .2v make a difference? - Supposedly.



If you had a wire, I'd hook it up. If not, I cant see much of a difference here if the wire is worth the hassle to run.

 

when you are talking about some of the greenstar initiative stuff and the push for mpg and epa crud, this makes sense.

 

So if you buy one of those battery based APU systems, your engine would be required to convert more power and thus get worse mpg right?

 

Well yes, but you gain not having to idle all night. Also consider alternators don't stay within spec their entire lives.

 

right now i never idle. I use a warm down blanket

 

When the pulleys are correctly sized the alternator should be at its design amperage at either the rated rpm of the engine or the governed. Any rpm below that and the amperage output will be reduced

 

Alternators generate heat too so if you plan on using it at near full capacity at low idle keep this in mind as you need good airflow to keep it cool.