Well I've been slowly sprucing up the 7. I have some money now but not a lot of time, so I plan on taking a few days off sometime soon to weld up my new exhaust. Lately I've been getting pissed off at my car during night time driving. When I have my lights on, my RPMs take a major hit. Add in my cd player and amp for my sub, and I cant even think about turning on the heat or defroster otherwise my RPMs plummet down into the 600-700 range. My car idles rough even at teh stock 750, normally it idles around 900-1000 comfortably.

Now what I'm wondering if I upgraded to a different alternator, if that would fix my problem. Does anyone have any suggestions or guides? I know nothing about even replacing a stock alternator, let a lone modding to install a different one. I figure if I can a 2nd or 3rd gen alt I can try to put it on when I take time off from work.

 

The 86-88 FC alt is a direct bolt in, taking you from 55 to 70 amps. That is the simplest upgrade for an FB. The shim washer may need to be thinned a little bit, they are usually a little thick to slip in, in between the rear mounting ears.

 

Also with slight modification you could run a GM alt if you cannot get ahold of a FC alt.

 

Will that extra 15 amps clear up my problems?

 

You really should check out the Archives for pinned articles on alternator upgrades. This is one of the more frequently asked questions. I did an S5 alternator install to provide in the archives and it was a breeze.

Do some searching around on the forums. Almost every alternator question you have has already been answered.

 

I did an S4 alt upgrade and everything seems good with my system...

 

Sounds unusually bad, so it may not be the alternator (or all of our cars would be that bad). It may be corroded contacts at the highh current locations to and from the battery/alternator, or it may be the old aluminum battery cables. You may want to replace the cables with copper and cleanup contacts at the same time.