the alt is rated at 170 or 180... the biggest fuse in the car is 200 Amps... as far as i can tell, the alt is still going strong but who knows - it may just fall off a cliff and not decline slowly...

when i do my upgrades or additions, i mind the total system limitations on the total amperage and monitor the gauges of the wires used and the inline fuses that i use... I am not maxing out my alt output potential nor the battery wattage...

the total draw of all my additional gadgets at this moment stands at about 2-3 amps additional, which is about 1-2% of the total system capacity... the car has heated seats at all 4 corners, when all 4 seats are and the heated steering wheel are on, those alone draw tens of amps... and the car was designed to keep up with it... so my couple amps running is not much of a burden...

I just think that the battery stays constantly in the electricity loop, even when the car is fed off an alternator - the flow of charging juice is going to the battery, as the voltage regulator is keeping the voltage above 12 V nominal and the while the alt is running, the battery is not supplying additional amperage...

the alternator capacity is 170A (some sources say - 180A). the voltage regulator must provide at least 13V, thus the alternator is rated at 2210 Watts (or 2340 W if it is 180A). the battery is rated at 12V and with 200 A fuse (which is probably industry standard 110% of system capacity), the maximum sustained current is 181 A which is inline with the alt capacity.

the regulator supplies 13V (varying with engine speed but not exceed 14 V nominal) under different load demands, meaning, if the car demands 25 amps from alt, it will keep 13 volts and provide 25 amps... next second demand spikes to 70Amps, the regulator MUST sustain 13 volts and supply 70amps... that is the beauty of the regulator, it must keep one parameter, in this case, the voltage at nominal (13V) level, while the demand for amps varying with changing loads... once the car demands more than 180 amps, say, 198 amps (to keep below 200A fuse rating), the voltage will drop below 13 volts as the alternator can NOT exceed its wattage rating (in our case it will be 2210 W / 198A = 11.2V or 2340 W / 198A = 11.8 V)... all numbers are nominal, meaning that the the battery itself might not be 12 V, the alternator can put out from 12.5 to 15V (16V considered deadly for electronics), the alternator has internal lag, which is the response time needed for the electronics to level the voltage if there is spike in the demand, during which time the voltage can drop down from nominal, and when the demand is gone, because of the lag the voltage can spike...

didn't mean to do electrics 101 here... lol...