Important: Improvements on Saturn Alternator Swap

[awdwhip]

No worries on responce time...sometimes i'm gone for days at a time and don't get to even see the 'net.

The pulleys are a definite thing... I cut the blanks already, and turning them won't be an issue at all. THe only thing i don't have is a broch/keyway cutter for making the notch if the alt has a woodruff key on the shaft (not sure if it does but i would imagine so)

I plan on building a few extras when i do mine so that the few people that I know from this thread wanting them can get one. AFter that i may do a secondary run of them if they go off well. I will let you know when the first ones come off the lathe

Keep us posted. I would love to get a lil more out of my pump and injectors. I dont have AC but I do use the heater! BTW, great thread

 

[talondsp1]

No worries on responce time...sometimes i'm gone for days at a time and don't get to even see the 'net.

The pulleys are a definite thing... I cut the blanks already, and turning them won't be an issue at all. THe only thing i don't have is a broch/keyway cutter for making the notch if the alt has a woodruff key on the shaft (not sure if it does but i would imagine so)

I plan on building a few extras when i do mine so that the few people that I know from this thread wanting them can get one. AFter that i may do a secondary run of them if they go off well. I will let you know when the first ones come off the lathe

That sounds great man! Looking forward to seeing the difference it will make.

 

[knochgoon24]

Dibs on being a test subject!

The good:
My car no longer has to be a DD since I'm a school and I either bus or bike.

The bad:
I don't have a garage, so I'm working in a parking lot. 75' extension cord....
But the alternator has to go in soon. I'm on borrowed time.


On a side note:
The side of bling with the new aluminum pulley (also probably lighter?) won't be a bad thing.

 

[turboglenn]

knochgoon... Count yourself commited, the only way out is death!!! j/k but it sounded gangster

Anyway, if you're not on a strict time line to get it back together or if you're just willing to pull the alt off and change pulleys later down the road, i'll do you a deal you can't refuse on the "test pulley" I'll send it to you free, just test it thoroughly!

I"ll be off work next week and have a week to kick back and catch up on my free/charity projects and stuff for myself and i will try and get a few of these done.. I will have to find some way to notch the pulley out iuf i can't build or buy a keyway cutter by then

 

[juanpac0]

Glenn, I havent forgotten about the alt stuff, I'm still trying to take this sucker apart.

 

[turboglenn]

hey no worries bud, im in no hurry so i don't expect you to be either

I've got a lot on my plate right now and in about a week i'm looking forward to my first 2 day spell off work in over 2 months, I can't wait!!! (bad thing is i'm the boss and i still can't get a day off : )

I'd lik to run off a dozen or so of these pulleys to see how they do but the 6061 AL has me a little scared.. IT's plenty strong but i do worry about any shearing of the woddruff key or it starting to "wobble out" and have the hole enlarge over extended use.. THese are just things knoch and I wil have to keep eyes on for a while i guess

 

[kingjust]

Turboglenn, great read along with the others posting. I was wondering or better yet requesting... is there any possibility of posting some sort of diagram showing "your" setup from alt rewire to all of the cables ran? I'm a very visual person, while reading and understanding everything you wrote, I just feel more comfortable with a diagram of sorts. Dropping new stroker here soon and cleaning up/upgrading electricals is high on the priority list. If you can't that's cool too...

Also, I see alot of 4g being used. I run 0g from battery in the trunk to a nice quality distro block. Is the 0g too big? I'm going to be running a 120amp saturn alt.

Thanks!

KJ

 

[97gstnick]

I bought a pig tail from napa, pulled out the "f" pin. And soldered a long 12 gauge wire from the "s" pin all the way to the fuel pump. Works great. 14+ volts at idle.

 

[knochgoon24]

knochgoon... Count yourself commited, the only way out is death!!! j/k but it sounded gangster

Anyway, if you're not on a strict time line to get it back together or if you're just willing to pull the alt off and change pulleys later down the road, i'll do you a deal you can't refuse on the "test pulley" I'll send it to you free, just test it thoroughly!

I"ll be off work next week and have a week to kick back and catch up on my free/charity projects and stuff for myself and i will try and get a few of these done.. I will have to find some way to notch the pulley out iuf i can't build or buy a keyway cutter by then

Sweet. I'm not really in too much of a hurry now that I'm at school. The car's going to be sitting for a bit. Thing is, when I do drive it, it's either going to 1 of 2 extremes.

1. Stop and go, downtown, college-town traffic. Lots of idling.
2. Romping on it on my way home through those wonderful central PA mountains.

I'll probably install the alternator with the stock pulley first so I can get some logs of voltage before modification. You want actual quantitative proof, right?

I should be able to put together a new and old voltages vs RPM graph for you.

 

[ECLEVO4G]

Ok I am confused and I am decent at wiring but no genius at it. Now I just got my sat alt the other day from pullapart, checked it out at advance it's good. Now i ended up with connector that had the brown color ones, one with a white stripe and one with out. I have the connect properly but there is a wire that you have to bolt on to the alternator where should that go. I have that wire connected to the two white wires that use to be on the alternator going to the fuse box in the engine. I know i am doing something wrong

did I wire up the sat alt correctly? is the wire that bolt up to alt the s-wire

 

[SiNiST3R]

Wow! All this for this mod? rofl

I did this mod beginning of the year just about so back when this was only on dsmlink and only a couple pages long .

Here is all I did.

SC/SL Series

Bought the 105amp SIMPLE

Then installed it by grinding (ALOT OF GRINDING) It fits Yay!

Head over to the local junk yard pick up a pigtail Yay! 2 bucks

##################### Confusing Part To People #####################

1st

Install The black with yellow stripe wire(light wire) goes to the L terminal (Black with white stripe wire on the saturn connector)


2nd

F (Little F on the Saturn connector) Run that to the Firewall used a source where the FPS aka stupid smog plugs I say. Use a multimeter to find the Source Make use it turns off when the car is off.


###########################################################


Guess what It works great simple easy instructions

And if you must know I used a 14g wire.

 

[My1GLaser]

what kind of voltage are you logging, sinister?

And BTW, glenn added some excellent info to the mod about using the sense wire to get the alt to put out more voltage if you still see to much drop under load.

 

[SiNiST3R]

With a Brand new alt that I just posted I get low 12s with AC/Both fans on/Radio on/HIDs on. With everything off and 700 idle around 13.7. I dont have any electrical problems etc Simple as this if you think your gonna have problems buy the damn 200amp one off that site.

Its a very simple mod. You only need to use 1 wire from the harness and the other one you run takes about 15min the most run it with your ac line if you wish.

 

[ECLEVO4G]

ok now what is the sense wire? that's my question I have the 2 wires from sat alt connect to the 2 wires for the mitsu. There is wire that i can take off that's connected by bolt is that it?

 

[SiNiST3R]

What also gets me You guys are busting out the 4 gauge wire. You know that you already have a thick wire running to the Post right? ie the one that you have to tighten the nut for.

The F is one you just need to run a 12V Ignition Switched Source.

Man if am wrong tell me because after reading all this Its getting pretty confusing

Sense - Used to sense voltage across the battery to prevent overcharging.

ok now what is the sense wire? that's my question I have the 2 wires from sat alt connect to the 2 wires for the mitsu. There is wire that i can take off that's connected by bolt is that it?

The Big one with the bolt and nut is your:
Battery Post - Heavy gauge wire that connects to the battery. This is doing the charging.

Here is a pic to show a you guys a little something now just replace 1 with F and 2 with L.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

 

[My1GLaser]

ok now what is the sense wire? that's my question I have the 2 wires from sat alt connect to the 2 wires for the mitsu. There is wire that i can take off that's connected by bolt is that it?

The wire on the bolt is the charging wire that goes to the battery.

The sense wire was the main topic of this thread and was mentioned and explained in the first few posts.

The brown & brwn/wht wires should be labeled on the connector itself. I have the same one with brown wires and the plug has an "L" "F" & "S". The "S" doesn't have a wire and you have to put one in there. I just took apart another harness I had laying around and found one to fit in there.

 

[ECLEVO4G]

Ok so the thicker wire in the diagram is the sense wire for the alternator that I should run to the battery. It said 4 gauge wire is good to run for the sense wire right?

The wire on the bolt is the charging wire that goes to the battery.

The sense wire was the main topic of this thread and was mentioned and explained in the first few posts.

The brown & brwn/wht wires should be labeled on the connector itself. I have the same one with brown wires and the plug has an "L" "F" & "S". The "S" doesn't have a wire and you have to put one in there. I just took apart another harness I had laying around and found one to fit in there.

Ok see now I am confused so you have the same harness but you added a 3rd wire for it? Which is the sense wire?

Ok I had to re-read the post but i get it now, so I will change out my connector tomorrow and run the s wire to somewhere. Could i just run it to the fuse box in the engine bay? I don't have anything in my car right now, no accessories at all.

 

[kingjust]

Here is a pic to show a you guys a little something now just replace 1 with F and 2 with L.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Everyones talking about striped wires... I have the Jay Racing harness which are solid colored wires. But i'm sure I will figure it out. Also, couldn't you run some type of resistor somewhere on the "sense" wire so that it would give the apprearence of not enough voltage (basically making the alternator put out an extra .5 to 1 volt extra)... if let's say it was hooked back up to the battery? Would that work?

KJ

 

[knochgoon24]

Yes, we've tossed around the idea of using a potentiometer (pot) to add resistance in the signal line to fine tune your output voltage.

You run some dangers though, especially if you get too much output voltage, including, but not limited to:
*Frying your battery
*Frying your ecu
*Frying anything electrical in your car
*Having an electrical fire from an aforementioned frying

Unless you know what you're doing, you should probably just wire it in normal until instructions are made clearer (like what voltages to aim for, what resistance to use, where to measure voltages from, etc.) I'd hate to see another DSM with electrical problems. They can be such a pain to track down.

 

[kingjust]

Well I guess that is what i'm waiting on. This generic diagram is nice, but not based off of what the OP was achieving. Guess that's why if "he" could make a diag of his own wiring setup. Patiently waiting.

KJ

 

[My1GLaser]

Yes, we've tossed around the idea of using a potentiometer (pot) to add resistance in the signal line to fine tune your output voltage.

Hell yeah! Thats what I'm going to do. I have one from when I tried it on the "F" wire. Last year I thought its function was to sense...I didn't know about wiring up a 3rd wire to the "S" terminal back then.

I datalog every time I drive the car, so I will run the potentiometer into the passenger compartment and screw with it this weekend. I want to find the happy medium where it doesn't go above 14.7 when first cranked with no accessories on, or below 13.5 after hard pulls when it is hot and I have the lights and all 3 fans on. Or I could have a daytime and nighttime setting on the knob so it always outputs 14.5-14.7...

 

[ECLEVO4G]

That would be nice! I am about to rewire the whole thing this week. Get my alt and battery check just to make sure it's good, cause when i logged it my volts were low as hell. Like around 10 and then 9 but I check the alt at advance and they said it was good. so I am going to redo everything

 

[badas93tsi]

Just get the self exciting regulator and call it done. 4 gauge to battery, no wires from the harness needed.

 

[ECLEVO4G]

Where are you guys running the s-wire? I don't have any accessories right now no ac, heat, or radio, but radio will come later. what do you guys suggest i place the s wire

 

[My1GLaser]

Where are you guys running the s-wire? I don't have any accessories right now no ac, heat, or radio, but radio will come later. what do you guys suggest i place the s wire

Mine is ran straight to the + post of the batt. Glenn has his ran to the distribution block. The best place to run it is to the place that would see the most voltage drop under load. Someone suggested the fuel pump, unless of course it is rewired.

I am going to run a potentiometer inline so I can just dial in whatever voltage drop I want instead of hunting for the best place on my car.