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Important: Improvements on Saturn Alternator Swap

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Decoder- My saturn alt squeaks the tiniest bit at idle; barely noticeable to the untrained ear thought. I think the squeal has to do with the saturn pulley having too tall of ribs so the belt doesnt actually ride inside the pulley ribs but rather on top of the ribs. If you look at the stock dsm pulley and the saturn pulley, youll notice that the saturn one is more pointed where the "V" ribs meet and the dsm one is more rounded where they meet.

So I think I think its safe to say that unless you somehow "round off" the top of the ribs, you might have to tighten the belt more or get a different style of belt.
 
My adjustment bolt snapped off on the highway :( I heard it hitting the fins on the alt then heard it bounce off the bottom of my car. Definitely want that bracket. Any news on them turboglenn???
 
this iis the oon;yu place i know toupdate this

The frst real baatch of alt brackets hadissues with the endwherethe adjustment bolt sits and pulls from were bending eaily, gonna have to start overoutof steeli think but this might make the easier and faster to make
 
this iis the oon;yu place i know toupdate this

The frst real baatch of alt brackets hadissues with the endwherethe adjustment bolt sits and pulls from were bending eaily, gonna have to start overoutof steeli think but this might make the easier and faster to make

Wow that was painful to read LOL. Was that typed from an android phone? This bracket has nothing to do with an alternator relocation kit, correct?
 
i run the factor Mitsu pulley on my saturn unit, i think i had to machine it just a tad but its been the perfect one so far... i had a smaller pulley and ended up over spinning the Alt and it exploded LOL... then went to a bigger one, but it was a tad larger then the mitsu one, and idle volts sucked, then i tried the mitsu one, and great results...

whats this talk of brackets? are you guys having problems with the stock one? i never have any problems with mine
 
i run the factor Mitsu pulley on my saturn unit, i think i had to machine it just a tad but its been the perfect one so far... i had a smaller pulley and ended up over spinning the Alt and it exploded LOL... then went to a bigger one, but it was a tad larger then the mitsu one, and idle volts sucked, then i tried the mitsu one, and great results...

whats this talk of brackets? are you guys having problems with the stock one? i never have any problems with mine

More details on fitting the stock Mitsu pulley to the Saturn Alt? What did you have to do?

I would recommend staying away from the self exciting 1 wire alternator. When a 3 wire alt is wired properly it's performance is far superior to a 1 wire alt.

Catalog

That's some good reading!
 
Wow that was painful to read LOL. Was that typed from an android phone? This bracket has nothing to do with an alternator relocation kit, correct?


you're correct, android (Evo shift) LOL and looking at it now it was painfull to read on my end too.. But anyway, Yea i'm starting over on the pulleys from steel and should have past failed ones replaced and some spares for others together here by early summer since this is just a small side project and not a thing i'm really doing for moeny or paying bills (and you are correct this is just for the factory location and nothying to do with moving the alt it's self just trying to improve the adjustment bolt fit and setup with the saturn alt on the 4g engine )

I would recommend staying away from the self exciting 1 wire alternator. When a 3 wire alt is wired properly it's performance is far superior to a 1 wire alt.

Catalog

I also have to vote to stay away from the one wire self exciting unit, I don't think their voltage out put is nearly as well regulated when ran this way and i also doubt they are as good on putting a proper chargeon the batter because of this, espcially when running a lot of electronics like a stereo, CDI unit and the sorts and running at night with the lights and stuff on
it was a long time ago, IIRC it was like 1mm too small and we put a spacer behind it to get the relationship from the mounting point to the pulley correct.

You're correct, it needs pushed out alittle bit but on the one i have here for playing with the fitment between the twodiffernt parts is rather poor and i abandoned even trying, did you get one where they shared a similar enough taper to couple up good?
 
You got my contact info, let me know on this stuff!!!!
 
How much more difficult is it to wire up the multi wire alt over the single? I still have the single self exciter on BNIB at home for a couple months now and I'm curious if motorcity will let me exchange it for the multiwire.
 
you're correct, android (Evo shift) LOL and looking at it now it was painfull to read on my end too.. But anyway, Yea i'm starting over on the pulleys from steel and should have past failed ones replaced and some spares for others together here by early summer since this is just a small side project and not a thing i'm really doing for moeny or paying bills (and you are correct this is just for the factory location and nothying to do with moving the alt it's self just trying to improve the adjustment bolt fit and setup with the saturn alt on the 4g engine )



I also have to vote to stay away from the one wire self exciting unit, I don't think their voltage out put is nearly as well regulated when ran this way and i also doubt they are as good on putting a proper chargeon the batter because of this, espcially when running a lot of electronics like a stereo, CDI unit and the sorts and running at night with the lights and stuff on


You're correct, it needs pushed out alittle bit but on the one i have here for playing with the fitment between the twodiffernt parts is rather poor and i abandoned even trying, did you get one where they shared a similar enough taper to couple up good?

I'm not sure what "taper" your talking about the pulley was off an OEM mitsu Alt that I killed.

and about the 1 wire units, that what I have and just last night i was driving with headlights, fogs light, heater and rad fan all on i still was seeing 13.5v... The trick with one wire units it to make a battery harness for things that draw a lot of amps, like fuel pump (which we do usually anyway) and radiator fans. Also make sure your charge wire is in good shape, this way the "draw" is as close to the alt as possible so the regulator can feel the amp draw and compensate.
 
Adam your so smart ! LOL I also have 2 saturn alts with 1 wire, never had any problem with them and I rev them to the moon.
 
My 1 wire whines REALLY loud at 8k (cant hear turbo at all and can kind of hear the exhaust LOL) but has a problem charging under 1k rpm.....sending it back to get a 3 wire swapped into it.
 
I run a 105amp, 4 wire saturn 'CS' alt. No issues at all. 13.9-14.2 with everything but headlights on. Once there on, I have 12.4-12.6 at idle. Once I get going I'm back at 13.5+.

Any ideas?
 
i haven't had any issues charging with the 1 wire, no issues at idle either i run between 950-1000 rpm at idle. Only issue is today the alternator took a crap its getting rebuilt locally right now lasted about a solid year
 
A note on the rebuild and life of the saturn alt.

I'm not sure what it is about the saturn/chevy unit, but i seem to get only about a year out of them as well. The first one failed for no particular reason, but the second one i'm guessing had something to do with the amount of oil that got on it from a leaking turbo oil feed line that quickly dumpedabout a half a quart through the top of it LOL After that the charging light would come on intermittantly and then go back off, but on data logs i couldwatch and see something was up as volts would drop to about 8.9v when the light would come on.

Two other things related to the install. I've found taking care not to break off the flimsy "dust cover" or whatever it is on the saturn unit is helpfull, the oil leak i had wouldn't have even hit the alt had that shield not broken off whilte grinding the other side to fit the car. note 2 It REALLY helps to grind the block and front cover area where the alt bolts on. Grind a smaller radius around the mounting/pivot hole for the lower alt bolt and not only will it fitt much better without near as much grinding but it also allows the alt to move further in adjustment (Stop that squeeling belt :D )

safety warnging for your engine After having run this alt for may years now and doing constant oil changes i've found that if you run the larger filter designated for the 1g car, when adjusted tight it WILL hit the bottom of the alt to the top threaded end of the filter (where the cap is "crimped" on) not only did this cause issues removing a filter once but also i've had it need adjusted (on a new belt mind you) to where the alt hit the filter so bad that it deformedthe sealing edge and caused me a massive oil leak that could have killed the engine fast had i not been so precautious about all my repairs/maintenence. There's a coulple solutions for this. 1.) get a FF-OFH 2.) Run the smaller 2g oil filter (What i'm currently doing) 3.) grind more off the alternator where it makes contact.

Personally i run the smaller filter for a few reasons, 1.) i've had them question the extra grinding on an alt we replaced on a friends DSM when trying to get warranty 2.) I change the oil and filter so often and use good filters so size isn't as huge deal, i cut em open on every change to inspect and found no reasons to need extra filtering..... as far as teh grinding and "lifetime warrantys" on the saturn?CS alts.. with the front cover and engine block the grinding is VERY MINIMAL, plus if you use a 80 grit roloc and then a 120 afterwards you can clean the area up really nicely where no one can notice yuou did any modifications :D

JUst thought those were a few good tips for everyone doing this.. And on a postive note about the brackets, I came up with something completely different that can't bend, adjusts way easier than an OEM setup and looks cool to boot. Another couple weeks on my car and that'swhat will be going out to anyone who got the old style to replace the bending adjutment point (and will be offered to those upon request thatwantthem...pics to come)
 
Glenn, I noticed that most of the time it's a heat related issue with them dying. If you look at a mitsu next to the Saturn one, there are a few differences. Ones is the bearing is exposed on the saturrn, so exhaust heat fries the grease. Second is that the regulator is external too, just covered with a plastic cover.

I go through them every 3-5 months.

This last one is at 5.5 months, I added a heat blanket sticker thing from advance to the plastic cover. The grease in the bearing is still good. So that may be something to try.
 
Yea, heat will do a number on them for sure, but i have also noticed that getting them oil soaked isn't very good either. Both from things like my leakijng oil line to dip sticks popping out and getting oil built up on them (which is what use to happen on my old engine when i was still on mitsu alsternators)

Overall i think the trade off is worth it for the little extra grinding to the block and alt to get a great reliable alt that doesn't drop voltage so fast
 
it was a long time ago, IIRC it was like 1mm too small and we put a spacer behind it to get the relationship from the mounting point to the pulley correct.

I'll have to check that out, thanks.

Any issues with extending the Alt wires? I'm relocating mine plus I've got a wire tuck done and want to keep it all neat.
 
I would recommend staying away from the self exciting 1 wire alternator. When a 3 wire alt is wired properly it's performance is far superior to a 1 wire alt.

Catalog

So I've read a couple things regarding this, and wondered how common failure is with the single wire? I've been running mine for almost a year now, and with a one 12" sub in the back, and all accessories on including A/C, headlights, and radio at full blast the lowest it'll go is 13.8-14.0.

Just something I'm thinking about, because prior to this Saturn Swap, I was going through major headache's replacing standard alternators and getting stranded on the road. I'm wanting to avoid future problems.
 
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The plug is a "universal" plug for any GM "CS type alternator" it has 3 wires one for "L" one for "F" and a large red one for the "S" GO to advance, NAPA, or O'reilly and just tell them you need a plug for a GM "CS" alternator and you will get one with 3 wires black for the "L", brown for the "F" and red for the "S"...

The above is from your post #7 in this thread. There is a correction to the above: On the Dorman pigtail (part #85854) for these Saturn GM CS alternators, the pigtail's black wire is actually the "F" and the brown wire is the "L".
 
Interested in the bracket as well. Want to go with a saturn alternator, but would like it a bit better secured and want to keep AC.
 
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