I have searched the forum several times over with little avail.... I am embarrassed to even be asking this type of question but I feel its necessary... I have found that my alternator barley charges and I need to know why that is. To keep from going into too much worthless fun detail the alternator is a re-manufactured S4 running off of Mazda competition pulleys.

The issue is that it barley (if at all charges) the car is running on/with a Microtech so the stock harness is out of the picture. I noticed tonight when I was practicing some drift skills that the car was running lean... I think, I am pretty sure that this lean situation is directly related to the low voltage issue... I need to know what I am supposed to do to make this alternator charge... I hope this is a simple issue that someone else has already conqoured..

I have included some pics of the car... because I figure if I show that I am not some posser wanabe then maybe just maybe someone might help me out here..

 

Please REMEMBER that I NEED HELP WITH THE ALTERNATOR>>>>

 

Yo, I dig the setup u got there. I want to turbo my na s4 reman, but Im not sure exactly what needs to be done. Make sure your grounds are all clean and snug... I have the same problem I notice my alt won't work correctly unless I rev up to 6k+. I've drained the same battery about 3 times(tsk) so don't go through what I did torturing the battery. I replaced my s4 alt with a s5.. FD is the best of the bunch of course . Battery terminals should be secure as well. You probably know more than me but I just wanted to give what info I have cause u got a sweet setup and u drift. Good luck.

 

I think you may have answered your own question. I imagine the Mazda Comp Pulley is an under driven pulley, so your Alt isn't turning as fast as it should be. Since it's not turning as fast as it should be you're getting less juice than stock. You're also running an Efan, which whether you know it or not is sucking juice from what normally would be going to the rest of the car. You may either want to swap out the pulley or you may want to upgrade to an FD Alternator.

 

I have all S4,S5,S6 alternator available... all are brand new or re manufactured.. When I attempted to use the s5 alternator it would not field properly so it would not charge at all... unless I reved the car to like 6k and then it would charge for a while.... so IDK... I don't know what these alternators need to see to start charging. The fan is low draw and is operated by a switch and the alternator serously does not work well regardless... I am going to try and ground the alternator better and see if that helps any...

 

hey how u doin ? well i probably wont be able to help you in ur problem cuz im kinda new in this stuff eventhough i have an 88 fc and i wanna make it a drift car pretty much like urs but mine is white so gold rims like urs would be cool so i was wondering if u could tell me what kinda rims are those and the size too for the rear and front wheels and what kind tire u have for em ? and thx, u can contact me at [aaganeh@hotmail.com]
thx , peace

 

Is the small two plug harness connected to the rear of the alternator? If this is missing then then alternator will not charge properly. You will either get very high charge voltages or none at all.

This plug is on the emissions harness in an NA application so it probably disappeared when the Microtech was installed by someone who didn't know what they were doing.

 

currently I am using the S4 alternator... so I have the RL style plug in the back of the alternator case... Going to the regulator I have the Sense wire hooked up to the Battery and the Light wire that supposed to go to the alternator light and then to positive hooked straight to positive....... So the regulator should know how much field it needs to be putting out to give me the appropriate voltage... I am guessing its all fucked up and I need to burn the **** to the ground... I am going to put a series 6 alt in it and see how that works

 

Definitely go with the FD alt. If you have an Efan you really should be using a better alt anyway.

Are you still using the NA drivetrain?

 

S6 alt + optima battery FTW. Solved all my woes- and I run a vert with full a/c, power steering, B&M trans cooler pump, (for S/C), stereo, etc, ad nauseum.

 

FD alt requires a constant 12v so it knows not to charge(other wise it will try even with car off and drain your battery)

There is a pic of S4 to S5/FD swap floating around here.
(thanks to NZ for making this one)


I just used a small 30amp fused line to connect one of the terminals to the B post(output/connects to battery). Then the other terminal shut off my idiot lights.

Found the better one

 

Alright guys thats what I am going to do then..... Thanks for all the input... The rotors in the s6 are physically bigger so I should be able to get better charging at idle and ****... Now its just converting the alt pulley to acept a V-belt

To answer your ?

Its a turbo flywheel,trans,shaft,diff,shafts....