Alternator/Battery/Horn/Grille

[originalcyn]

I know, the last one doesn't really belong, but it got lumped in because it was a good time to do it.

I ended up putting this on this board, but now that i think about it, it might be better suited to the electrical board.

Here we go:

Day One:

This is mostly just house keeping.

1) Removed Battery
2) Removed Battery Bucket and Tie Down Equipment
3) Removed Grille
4) Removed Previous HID install
5) Removed Horn
6) Cleaned Battery Bucket & Tie Down Rods & Nuts with baking soda
7) Cleaned Horn
8. Filed Down Tie Down

A couple of shots of the engine bay after clean up:




The new alternator and cabling. I picked up the alternator from Maniac Electric. They were pretty helpful. In the corner you can see the remnants of the HID kit I pulled out. While it worked it was great, but then it was always a crap shoot if the passenger side would work. And if the passenger side did work, the driver side wouldn't.


The Battery and Tie Down:
The tie down just slightly didn't fit across the battery. Part of it needed to be filed down to get it to have a snug fit.


The Horns and Fuse Kit:
Apparently the alternator needs a second 4 gauge power line between it and the battery, as well as a 100 amp fuse. That thing is ridiculously huge and i'm not fond of it. I'm not sure where i'll mount it yet. The horns are out, i think i'll try and paint them red to mimic supertones and then see if i can get them to fit behind the grille correctly. By the way, thanks for the input again Josh, Danny and dscoobydoo! You guys are great.


Pictures to come...dun dun DUN!

[Danny-G]

Are those the badges I sent you? If they are they look nothing like when I sent them out. I know about wanting to mimic supertones because I wanted to do that untill I figured I'll just go with the stealth look. I'll be checking this for updates to see how it goes.

[originalcyn]

Yeah, those are your badges. As for looking nothing like they did, well that's my fault. I was going to send you back the red one, but it cracked. The yellow one didn't crack, but the yellow paint seeped up through the black or something. None of the other badges i tried that with turned out that way, so i'm not really sure what's up with the yellow one. Other than the giant crack, the red one looks ok. I'm really disappointed with that whole process, nothing worked the way it was supposed to. I'm probably giving up on trying to repaint those things.

[originalcyn]

Day Two:

1. Install High output alternator
2. New power line from alternator post to battery positive
3. Mount In Line Fuse
4. Start Paint on horns

All and all, nothing really happened today, even though the biggest component was put in.


Alternator install and Reassembly:




In line Fuse Mount:
I decided to mount the fuse box on the battery bucket, just because i didn't want to look at it that often.


Horn Painting:
I don't think this is going well. As per my comments about the badges, painting never really goes well for me. I don't have the patience or skill necessary to do a decent job. The top of the horn dome is covered in painter's tape, as is the actual bracket. Hopefully only the bottom section will actually be red. I was going to go with yellow, but apparently the can of yellow paint i have has decided that it no longer wants to continue existing in a useful manner.



Tomorrow should be it. Hopefully she doesn't blow up on me. Tune in then, same subaru time, same subaru channel.

[magicmike]

Painting is a tedious task where 99% is preparation and 1% is actual spraying.

Just from your pictures I'd say that you are in too much of a hurry to get stuff painted. You should first of all clean the ever living shit out of what you are painting with brake parts clear to get all the grease and grime off. Primer is important if there is bare metal and or going over aluminum and finally and most importantly do multiple THIN coats letting them dry about 15 mins between coats. My first coats usually can still see the primer through the second gets a little more on and usually the third is just a "final" coat to make everything look uniform. This is of course when painting with rattle cans.

[evolutionmovement]

You also want it to be warm/hot out. I will heat the can thoroughly with hot water when not painting in the summer to get a more even coat. Even with the clearcoat unpolished, my bike has getten comments about how it looks factory painted (I think it's close, but would have to be polished for that). With all the prep, multiple coats, inspection, and fixing any slight issues between coats, it took me over a month to paint it. Good rattle can jobs are possible, just a PITA, but that's the trade off for cheap. Another thing is that the paint can take a few months to truly cure. Before then, it's pretty soft and easily damaged. Of course, they are just horns.

[originalcyn]

Thanks for the tips! yeah, i was in a hurry on this one, it was mostly user error, but i think the paint is also kinda old and runny or something. I was going to do yellow but that ran right off the surface, which was odd.

[originalcyn]

Day Three:

Final Day assuming that everything goes well forever.

Started off pretty early in the morning by checking the horns. Still tacky due to my impatience, but good enough for now.

Horns:


Horn Connectors:
Had to cut the horn wires and crimp buttend splices to relocate the horns to behind the grille.


Horn Final:
Cable ran, every thing crimped and zipped tied. Horns mounted on brackets. It's easy to tell the paint is not great, but once it's behind the grille and you're any reasonable distance away it looks slightly less crappy. The brackets for the horns are the stock ones. I drilled holes to mount them where they are. The look off center, but i think it's because of the latch mechanism. Honestly, i measured it, and it's pretty close to center, more than it looks anyways.


Inline Fuse:
Cable ran, dielectric grease added. All ready to go.


Battery Final:
I might need to rethink some of this cabling. it could probably be ran better than this. It doesn't look terrible, just...messy.


All Done:
Quick shots. It's really apparent that she needs to be washed.





Anyways, that's it, she runs fine (i think). Grille didn't immediately crack like last time, thanks to everyone's input on the custom grille thread from a few months back. Hopefully she'll be happy for a while.

[evolutionmovement]

Since the yellow ran, did you prime it first? I found that grease and junk can be pretty stubborn to get completely off. Steel isn't too bad, but aluminum is more porous. I painted my intake manifold and valve covers and in spite of cleaning the shit out of everything, the valve cover paint peeled right off. I think oil sat on it too long. Intake finish seems good, but that wasn't covered in oil. Brake cleaner does a good job getting junk off, but I like to finish it off with something after. Alcohol can work, but acetone is preferable, especially on something that's had crap sitting on it for a while. Old toothbrushes are great to get into cracks with. As a tip—try not to get brake cleaner on your skin as the xylene is absorbed through the skin. A little isn't going to harm you, but it's not good for you and, if you use it enough (which you probably won't), it stays in your system for a while, building up to the point where it can be pretty bad. I don't remember now what the figures are for toxicity and all that, but it's smart to avoid it as much as possible (not that I haven't been too lazy to use gloves myself).

Looks good with the red ringing them.

For cabling, it's something you get an eye and a sense for. When I think to how I used to run cables and wires I shudder. Not like it looks terrible anyway.

[originalcyn]

Nah, it wasn't primed with the yellow. However, that being said, i've used that can of yellow before on various things, it always kind of runs. it even ran off the blue painter's tape. I keep forgetting to throw it away. However, that can of red is fine, i've used it before with no problem, so the reason the red looks crappy is because i didn't take any prep time. i spent like 3 months making that grille, but i was in a rush for the horn. it was kind of an afterthought.

[Danny-G]

Did you paint the main fuse and relay box lid? In the fourth picture it looks like it was painted. It looks like everything went good.

[originalcyn]

Hah, yeah, a long time ago. Someone intentionally hit the driver's side fender. so i asked a friend to paint it. it didn't turn out the right color. I went to wesco to get paint and gave them the color code and everything, but it didn't match very well. It was annoying cause i told them it was faded and all that jazz and asked them to use the color temperature measurement tool they have but the clerk didn't want to. In any case, between the paint being slightly off, and my friend's...enthusiastic painting, some odd things got hit with paint.

Things went pretty well, besides the minor annoyances that could have been solved with some prep work and forethought. But all and all i'm pretty happy. It seems like, at least where i mounted the horns, there's a ton of room behind the grille. So i guess that's good news for people looking to stash supertones in their 92-94s.

[originalcyn]

Question for josh again, (sorry to keep hassling you), you went with the maniac electric high output alternator as well right? Does yours sound louder? Mine makes a noise that's a lot like the belt is loose. in any case, some kind of whine. I'm pretty sure the belt is fine, so other than that i can only really assume the alternator is supposed to do that. Additionally, when you put yours in, were you showing higher rpms during idle? i went from 400-500 to 900-1000.

Thanks!

[Danny-G]

Just for the record, my power steering pump whines so its possible that yours is low or something because the whine goes away when I fill it.

[Legacy777]

Mine does make a little bit of a whine....I'd say it's normal.

As for the rpm's, I'd suggest resetting the ECU, and see what happens after the reset.

[originalcyn]

Josh and Danny,

Thanks for the replies, and sorry for the delayed response. I'm out of town currently so i'll give you guys a heads up when i give those things a shot. In mexico right now, and i saw a legacy from our years. didn't even know it was one at first as it had some crazy kit and was painted a black to orange gradient. First and only subaru i've ever seen here.

[originalcyn]

So I was told that i can get an inline cap or what ever that attaches to the alternator to reduce the whine. Any one have experience with that? Supposedly places like car toys have them.

[Legacy777]

Wait, are you experiencing whine through the stereo, or are you saying the actual alternator itself is whining/making noise?

I have zero alternator/engine noise in my stereo setup. If that's what you have, I would suggest looking at how your wiring is setup and check your grounds.

[originalcyn]

Nah, the whine isn't through the stereo. At least i'm pretty sure it isn't. I took off the faceplate of the head unit to see for certain and the whine didn't sound any different than it had with the faceplate in place. I'm pretty sure it's the alternator itself that is whining. So i'm just going to assume that it's the normal thing and let it be. Thanks for all the help guys.

[originalcyn]

I thought i'd resurrect this thread, as my alternator is getting ready to give up the ghost. I feel like maybe 5 years was kind of a short period of time for it to have lived, but that could be any number of problems i suppose.

My current issue is that i need a high output alternator, but everyone seems to be either not making them any more, not responding to requests for information, or relatively high priced.

1) Maniac Electric Motors had a death in the family, and is no longer building alternators
2) Ohio Generator has been mediocre for a few years, apparently also a death
3) Mechman does not make subaru alternators
4) Powerbastards uses generic alternators that "fit all"
5) Quality Power Auto has some of the lowest reviews I've seen
6) DC Power Engineering doesn't have the alternator listed, but similar models run in excess of $400
7) Singer was nice enough to contact me back, but wants $469 for 180A model
8. AlterStart says they can only do it for $399 if it's a Mitsubishi alternator and i provide the unit


Has anyone had any luck recently with High Output alternators?

[Legacy777]

You could try running a newer Subaru Impreza alternator, I think they are around 100 amps or something like that.

However, I'll ask the question what are your electrical devices/draw on the car that you think warrants a HO alternator? I ask because yeah a HO alternator is cool to have, but do you need it.

[originalcyn]

That's a valid question. I had issues with the interior lights and headlights dimming on bass hits before i got my first alternator, so i figured that that was resolution enough. But i suppose it could be solved in a different fashion.

[Legacy777]

You need a capacitor or may want to consider upgrading batteries if you have a standard battery. The alternator's job is to charge the battery and maintain proper voltage. The alternator can do that as long as the electrical load is below what the alternator can put out. I'm sure there's some margin in there, but unless you've added a ton of electronics (which is why you see newer cars with higher amperage alternators) you should be fine with the stock alternator.

A capacitor will help with the bass and light dimming as it provides a storage vessel for power. I've got a 1 farad capacitor with the Optima yellow top battery and I'm good. I'm not sure what your stereo system is like, but I would think getting a capacitor and upgrading your battery if needed would resolve any issues.

[originalcyn]

I thought about a cap, but decided against it ultimately. I can't remember why, i think something i read on an audio forum. The battery is a nice interstate battery. Should be more than sufficient. I did think about upgrading to an interstate AGM battery, maybe i'll do that next time though. The system isn't that crazy. Just a set of mtx 12s and a jbl monoblock amp. I feel like the stock system should have been enough.

Anyways, it doesn't particularly matter now, there's an alternator being made that i should get in a couple weeks. If this all happens again i'll have to rethink the capacitor.

[Legacy777]

I still highly recommend you get a capacitor, even with the upgraded alternator. I can't imagine what negative things you read about adding a capacitor. If you find something, post as I'd like to read.