6 bolt in 2g talon - alternator question... please help!

[wjpowel]

hello, I recently replace the alternator and battery, and had a local auto electric place check out the whole system when they replaced it. Everything worked fine for a few months until recently my alternator voltage regulator went bad. I think this is the problem because I was watching the battery get charged to well over 17V on the safc-2. Now its not charging at all. I found a post about using a test light in series with the negative term on the battery and the connector. I did this only to find that the light does indeed turn on. I proceeded to pull fuses waiting to see which one would turn it out. After pulling all the in cabin fuses I started checking the engine compartment fuses and fusible links. I finally had a result when I pulled the IGN Motor fuse. The light however did not turn off... it only got dimmer. It was the only fuse that changed anything when i pulled it out. I was going online to check prices on a new alternator and ran into a dilema. I have a 2g dsm with a 6 bolt motor. I was wondering:

1. What the hell causes this in dsms? any suggestions??
2. Which year car should I tell autozone I have when I order an alternator? Autozone sells two different alternators for 1g turbos and 2g turbos. If i have a 6 bolt then dont i need the 1g?
3. I keep hearing about people who have gone through 9 alternators in 3 years. WHY THE HELL WOULD THAT HAPPEN? Is there anything (like rewiring) that could prevent this? I have considered running a new B+ wire to the fuse box with 4GA.

 

[Tx97GSX]

Get a 2g Alternator

 

[wjpowel]

hi there i recently found a useful bit on vfaq stating that the alternators are the same, but they have a different connector, which is swappable. so that covers that question entirely. I do however have another question. I want to run new power wires from the alternator to the fuse box, then from the fuse box to the battery. The wires are old and looked suspect before i knew it was the alternator. I was thinking i should upgrade the size to get better flow. I was wondering if there would be any negative side effects of installing 4 GA wire in these places. I have a very powerful audio amp so I would like the greatest efficency possible. I am also considering the G-vr4 90A alternator.

so really im stuck on where my short is comming from. I pulled apart the wire loom from the starter cables and inspected, and they looked perfect. One other thing I can think of is a recent problem I was having with the control wire for the starter. After putting my tranny back on (after replacing the damn clutch fork) the starter wouldnt crank. Tested it and the wires and they were fine. I did find that during cranking there was no power to the control wire. I found the relay under the stereo and ran my own 14 GA wire from the relay to control wire terminal on the starter. I dont know if maybe by running my own I bypassed something in the circuit or not. I smoke waaaaaaaaayy to much to understand chiltons wiring diagrams so i was wondering if someone had input. Is the wiring basically directly from the relay to the terminal or does it split off into a hundred other ridiculous things like the rest of the harness? please help thanks