2005 Toyota Camry Le Alternator

[aznlunatic206]

hey guys i own a 2005 toyota camry le 2.4l 4cyl car. Im pretty soon going to put in a sound system for my car and worried about my alternator frying becuase of the current draw and the extra battery in the back. On the alternator itself it did not say how many amps the alternator is. On some sites they say 100amps for a refub alternator, so does that mean in my car i have a 100amp stock alternator? also i emailed excessiveamperage.com for a price quote on a new custom built alternator and they said they could not build me one becuase my car alternator uses a "stator".

[Asteroid]

Provided your stereo is correctly installed, fused etc you shouldn't have any problems with the stock alternator. My Australian gen 5 has a 100A Bosch, which is heeeeeaps for a stereo, i'd imaging the US one is also 100A. In any case the alternator is very rarely a problem in car audio installations, unless it has tens of thousands of (real!) watts in an old car with a tiny 35A alt or similar. On a modern car like a gen 5 you'll be fine.

[aznlunatic206]

mines going to be around 1000watts, and im planning to get an extra battery, but worried about the extra strain on my alternator.

[Asteroid]

1000W is not much at all. In my Corolla I had a 1000w amp and a 200w amp, combined I measured a bit under 90 amps of current draw. Now remember this is absolute peak current draw, when playing music your system will only hit peak current draw for a mere fraction of a second (coinciding with the loudest part of the music). The average sustained current draw is a tiny fraction of that. Your factory electrics will easily cope with a stereo like that. When I had the system in my Corolla it used the standard 16 yr old alternator (which was somewhere around 50-60A). I did have a very large (single) battery in it being a diesel car and I used very thick 1 AWG cabling. This helped alleviate the voltage drop when my system peaked, which will be the main problem you will have. As car electrics only run at 12 volt, you will suffer from voltage drop when current draw increases (look up Ohm's law), this will cause the lights to dim and may damage your amplifiers in extreme cases. It can be alleviated by using larger cabling (which has lower resistance than thinner cabling) and having sufficient battery power to keep up with the stereo. Running a second battery in the boot is an excellent idea but probably isn't necessary at this sort of level.

[acer12]

i'm not much of an electrician but in my 04 le i have a 1000 watt amp for my subwoofers and an 800 watt amp for my midranges and currently have no problems whatsoever with my stock alternator so i imagine you shouldn't have any either.

[ben805]

you'll be fine, do the big 3 upgrade, and as long as you're not skimping on amp wiring kit (use 1/0 gauge) you'll be alright, as someone else mention music is dynamic so your stereo won't be pulling constant current. A deep cycle battery like the Optima Red/Yellow top will be helpful if you like to play your music with engine off, that way when you drained the battery you can recharge without killing it.

[ekpolk]

You should have gotten a hybrid -- no alternator at all to worry about...

[aznlunatic206]

well if i called the toyota dealer, will the be able to tell how many amp is alternator is? im guess all year 2005 toyota camry le 2.4l has the same alternator right? im planning to run a 1500watt amp for my 2 subs.