Hey all, glad to be here among fellow Civic owners!

I've got some questions:

I recently purchased a beautiful 2000 Civic EX, which was previously used as a show car.
I'll get right to the question though - this guy has "frog eye" gauges installed, to the left and right of the steering wheel down with the rest of the gauges.
There's one for Oil Pressure and Amperage - neither are wired. I'm currently aiming to wire the ammeter, but I need a little explanation.

I don't think the alternator is high-output, but I'm not exactly sure how to tell. The previous owner didn't mention anything about it, so I'm assuming it's stock. Either way, isn't that a lot of amperage to be flinging through the gauge? I understand you wire the 2 ammeter wires between the alternator and main alternator wire - should I run extra thick wire to the ammeter? I was going to try it tonight with 10G wire, but decided not to try it...

I've heard there are sometimes wires / terminals already installed on the alternator for an amp gauge - I couldn't find any; in that case, is splicing my only option?

Sorry for all the questions, but I want to make sure I don't blow anything up.

Many thanks for any info you can provide

 

you can tap into any keyd wire in the vehicle....voltage is the same

 

CLICK ME, or ME. Those are both the autometer ammeter gauge installation guides. They are saying to use 10ga or bigger for the gauge, one connected to the positive of the battery and the other to the positive of the alt.

 

For a conventional ammeter setup, you intercept the wire from the battery (+) to the rest of the car, except the starter. This is easy in a Civic because that wire goes from the battery to the underhood fuse box, and there is another wire from the battery just for the starter so you leave that one alone.

Wired this way the ammeter shows net current flow in or out of the battery. It should show slightly on the + side when the car is running. If it shows on the minus side while the car is running, that means the battery is being discharged, and if that situation continues the battery will eventually go dead. Other than telling you that, it is kind of boring to look at though, because it tends to stay near zero amost all the time.

Now if you were to wire the ammeter in series with the alternator output, it will show the current leaving the alternator, without distinction of whether it is going into the battery or being used elsewhere. This is kind of more interesting to look at because it will go higher and higher as you turn on more electrical stuff, such as the subwoofers. But it does not answer the question of whether the alternator output is high enough to keep the battery full.

In either case you use wire the same size or larger than the factory wire that is being diverted.