Alternator wiring
 

So the stock harness under the hood is completely butchered in my 79. Food for thought and wondering if anyone could help answer this before i go and make wires and all.

The power wire to the alternator, could i technically just make a wire going directly to and from the battery and alternator? or does it HAVE to connect to the other wires? Thank You.

If you are talking about the main output wire, yes it can go to the battery. If you are talking about the power wire that "turns on" the alternator then no it can not come from the battery. That would kill your battery. It needs to be key on only. The third wire should run into the dash for your alt light.

The gauge and length of the power wire is a factor also. If your voltage at the battery drops more that .4 volts at the alternator terminal with the engine off, you'll need to increase the gauge of the power wire.

so i noticed there's 4 hot wires coming off the stock harness, obviously one to starter, 2 to alternator, where's the fourth go to? I wound up buying a whole new harness and all the schematics i can find run a coil which i do not have.

I apologize if this is a redundant post, I'm fairly new to the whole carburated v8 american muscle world. i came from the honda fuel injected world.

Off the top of my head, the choke?

"run a coil which i do not have" HEI distributor has the coil mounted on top of the distributor cap. .