Sub-woofer-aru

Okay, I'll admit, I managed to mess up installing my grounding wires from Paranoid Fabrications.

Now, before you point and laugh too much, this is finals week and my mind is only half with it. Also, I had just finished installing my new foglights (it came out very well and worked right away, so I was pretty excited and simply "moved on" to my next item on list).

So basically, I hooked up all wires, and when I went to put the last cable onto the negative terminal, I managed to instead attach it to the POSITIVE terminal.

Needless to say, I put the terminal clamp back on and I hear a hissing sound, about 2 seconds later my engine bay looks like a stoners wetdream.

So in a panic I pull the negative terminal off and realize what a moron I was.

So I fix it up, get a new wire for the last connection, and everything runs SMOOTH, I'm amazed at the results.

Well, here comes my confusion with the Alternator.

I purchased an Optima Redtop about a month ago, and have been extremely pleased with it. About 2 days after my smoking up the engine bay ordeal, I'm driving around and notice that the "smooth" effects from the grounding mod are starting to dissipate, and I feel like my car is performing pretty shotty again. It was at this point I notice that my BATTERY and BRAKE lights were both on.

Now I did a search on forums and found another instance where someone had an alternator go soon after this occured.

I'm almost positive that my silly mistake with the grounding kit is going to cost me an alternator, but aside from going to an autozone to have my alternator and battery both tested (which I don't like risking driving and being stranded til AAA tows me to a shop) what options do I have to pinpoint where my problem is exactly?

Is it pretty obvious the problem, or can it be several sources that we won't know for sure until I can get it checked out?

Anyway, thanks in advance, feel free to laugh at my silly mistake, I did at first, and now I'm kicking myself cause I might be 200 bucks in the hole.

Sub-woofer-aru

I made it out to the autozone nearby and my alternator was putting out no juice whatsoever.

Dropped car off tonight and new alternator should be on tomorrow. I'm leaning towards a weird coincidence that my alternator went after all this stuff was put on, but still...