I *looks* like I'm going to score a Warn 9k soon I have the stock Alt and a red top.... I have a quest alt ready to install in the garage (just need to try fit and tweak out the bracket) I already have a 4ga wire supplementing the wire to the battery...

Whatcha think?

I ran the red top with a stock alternator for almost ten years and never had a problem. Just upgraded to a yellow top and a high output alternator. I also upgraded my wire to 2 ga. which was reccomened. In never had a problem winching either.

I ran stock battery and stock alt for a long time with no issues.

Then I ran red top and stock alt for a long time with no issues.

Now Im running red and yellow tops with stock alt with no issues.

Winching is only done for short periods of time, get a red or yellow top and dont worry about the stock alt until it starts dying. Were not talking about hour long winching operations here.

Also, 4 Gauge I guess is acceptable, but I always run 2 Gauge and prefer it.

It might actually be a 2ga, its pretty thick, on the order of 3/8" or so.

Ahhhh good to hear I can go with it as is and not have to hurry to upgrade the alt, its a pita to take off all three belts to just do a simple alt swap. wha wha wha

Just gotta watch ebay for some of that synthetic rope now. Hopefully I can find some in a nice yellow

yeah as long as you are not winching for a living youll be fine, plus if you have a yellow or red top you can winch with the truck off, and then the alternator becomes a non issue.

Now if you have stupid friends like me and you need to have all 8 offroad lights on while winching an iddiot out of a mudhole at 3am, then you may have alternator concerne :P

I've done "hour long winchfests" with stock battery and stock alternator. I now have an Optima Group 31 yellow top (RV size). Haven't had teh truck running long enough for a proper comparo (tranny and IFS died right after I bought it, and SAS started!).

Hour long winch fests? Didn't your winch get hella hot? Or the "load" on the winch was really light?

Stan