Modernized Engine Wiring

Well, '273 it does matter. If you have the theory backwards, you may have made other mistakes...

If someone rolled in here to FABO saying that increasing compression reduced detonation, you guys would be on him like white on rice. If the rebuttal was that you had "confused detonation with pre-ignition" You would throw the BS flag.

Using a rectifier there is an over complication, and a potential failure point. My question was "why?"

I hung many Motorola Motrac radios in cars in the 70's. We never got near the OEM electrics, running a 4 gauge wire straight from the battery to the trunk. The headlights would dim when you mash the pickle and pound 135 watts into that antenna. Mopars were bad, but the Matdors were worse.

Any regulator can be referenced to battery voltage, but some are easier than others. All internally regulated GM alternators have a remote sense circuit and connection built in. Most Nippondenso internal regulators do as well. Ford 3G / 4G / 6G alternators all reference through the "A" wire which is constant B+ connected.

To battery reference the simple mopar regulator all you need is a relay. Run a 14 gauge wire from the battery, through a 20 amp fuse (to reduce voltage drop) and through the relay to the regulator. Trigger the relay with the ignition circuit. Simple.

B.

I don't get what you are getting at here?

How is it (again?) that Mopar regulators are NOT referenced to the battery? The only way that they are NOT is if/ when the harness drop causes a mis-reference. And ---- I most certainly have ALREADY suggested to some that they use a relay for the ignition/ regulator circuit. I do so in my own Dart. The fact that the harness has or develops drop does not mean they are not voltage referenced, it only means that the harness is poorly designed, or damaged. It most certainly was the INTENT.

And what? again is the theory that I have backwards? I think you may have misread something I posted.

So far as your 135W radios, I find it really difficult to believe that in the cars with full current ammeters, you didn't have problems. Don't forget that the C barges were the first to implement external shunt ammeters. Seems to me that came around about 71-72 or so in some of the models.