A Rebuild Story - A Forged MP3 Motor

[TurfBurn]

wow Turf- so much work to get her running right. I guess I'm happy I have the Haltech

but of course,this could just be car specific to you.... have you ruled out the battery or the alternator?

It has NOTHING to do with the Microtech.. my car ran on the Microtech for several years with no issues... it most likely is due to the fact that I tore out most of the wiring harnesses, and no offense against Terry but 90% of the wiring done in the car was absolute and utter crap. I've been getting bit here and there by mistakes I made from hurrying and working on the car later than I should be etc...

I know for sure that it is car specific, and also, my car is wired different than the way we wire Microtech's now because I know much better ways to install them than the way it was put into my car... so that is a non-issue.

The issue for me is it is either the battery or the alternator. My alternator was modified/swapped, so even that isn't normal to other cars which contributes further to this situation. It's just a matter of ID'ing what is going on and why.

 

[TurfBurn]

Alright, I went out and wasn't getting any reading on Ohms from the car at all. If you are getting a reading, My dad said it is most likey a Ground not connected or a wire shorted or is crossed somewhere... only reading I was able to get was Voltage DC (12.9v)... nothing on Ohms at all.

I would go through and check ALL your grounds first, then move on to other wires from there

Sounds good... thanks! Problem for me is I have so many gauges, and about 4 or 5 auxillary relays I use for different things etc... basically all the wiring in this car is custom by either me or the guy who owned it before... so that leads to a lot of problems.

Keep in mind that the major hurdles thus far have been a bad set of spark plugs, and a loose wire or two. Now I have some funky electrical thing that I'm going to figure out (I'm going to swap batteries before driving again) and I'll log everything now as well (should have been doing that in the first place) and hopefully I'll nail down what I need to. Just the nature of the beast with so much changed.

 

[VizaX]

if you need me to check anything else just hollar, my dad is an electrion so ill most likely have something to check wiring hope its something simple.

 

[PaulMP3]

why not just throw a stock alternator, and run your microtech like the ones you are selling. Seems it might help to have the idenical microtech setup, as the ones you are selling.

 

[jurgs01]

Alright, I went out and wasn't getting any reading on Ohms from the car at all. If you are getting a reading, My dad said it is most likey a Ground not connected or a wire shorted or is crossed somewhere... only reading I was able to get was Voltage DC (12.9v)... nothing on Ohms at all.

I would go through and check ALL your grounds first, then move on to other wires from there

I hope you weren't reading Ohmage with your battery still connected. You will not get a valid reading and possibly ruin your meter (hopefully fused).

Turf, the amount of resistance between your positive terminal (when disconnected) and your chassis ground depends on the amount and types of loads you have connected to your batter (if you have more loads connected in parallel the resistance will go down).

 

[TurfBurn]

I hope you weren't reading Ohmage with your battery still connected. You will not get a valid reading and possibly ruin your meter (hopefully fused).

Turf, the amount of resistance between your positive terminal (when disconnected) and your chassis ground depends on the amount and types of loads you have connected to your batter (if you have more loads connected in parallel the resistance will go down).

Right but the main relay is open when you have the car off... so the only loads that should or would exist are shorts etc... the cars have nothing else wired to the main fuse other than the alternator and starter. So that's why the test I'm doing is/was valid because as long as the key isn't in the ignition, the starter and alternator are all that are connected to the positive terminal. After that all bets are off.. That stuff all seems to check out yet I'm still getting a bat error here and there. I'm going to finally swap the battery and go driving.

As far as putting in a stock alternator.. no real point.. for one I ripped out most of the stock harness so I'm SOL anyway... otherwise, I can just put in an early 90's 626 alternator which is fully self contained anyway and I'm all good that way too without the stock computer. I'm basically trying to figure out if I actually have an alternator problem or if I'm fighting a battery. The reason I don't get what is going on is that it will be "fine" most of the time and just periodically/at random go crazy. Which is why I suspect a wiring fault more than anything. But the alternator in my car only has the main charge wires and then one single wire... I basically have an enable wire and a metering wire and that's it... it's being run as an IG/S alternator rather than a P/D alternator like is stock in the newer Mazda's.

So anyway.. the issue isn't my understanding or the Microtech, just a matter of what is going on.

Later!

Steve

 

[LinuxRacr]

On a car with that many wires, it's a matter of hide and seek on the real man.

 

[TurfBurn]

Well it isn't the battery... swapped batteries... got the error within 5 minutes... so now it's down to isolating what is going on with the alternator...There is a sense wire that I'll go in and replace and see if that fixes it... After that I may build a small circuit to bias the voltage up at the sense point so that it automatically charges lower than right now... but that's not the best way to do things really... but oh well I guess! We'll see... I want to go until either the alternator decides it is a piece of crap and dies, or until I figure it out and fix this crap.

Later!

Steve

 

[jurgs01]

After all you have done with the car is seems very possible that you could have a grounded wire. Good luck and let us know if you need anything checked to validate your readings.

 

[TurfBurn]

I was just thinking about this as I was typing before... I realized that both cooling fans use to run constant all the time when it was wired before. I made some changes and now one of the fans doesn't run because I don't have it switched on... so what I'm wondering/realizing is that it may have been that Terry had the system set up such that with all the loads on/running that the alternator held even with things and overall you wouldn't get an overcharge because you had enough capability to hold the alternator in check... in other words the alternator never was fielded correctly. So I'm going to go down and rewire that fan and add that extra amperage to the system. I had noticed that the car ran/did better when I had the lights on... so I'll run with lights and stereo and the fan on and see if I still get the error... I'm going to bet I don't... which is a rather stupid way of running the system but may be necessary.

Later!

Steve

 

[TurfBurn]

After all you have done with the car is seems very possible that you could have a grounded wire. Good luck and let us know if you need anything checked to validate your readings.

I appreciate the offer... I will keep at it.. and hopefully have good news before I quite working on this around 8:30 to tend to some other things..

Later.

Steve

 

[LinuxRacr]

I remember the sense wire was the issue when I 1st installed my Haltech. It was disconnected, and I was seeing like 15-16 volts easy when I would drive it.

 

[TurfBurn]

Well I believe it was the alternator... It went crazy on this last drive... off the chart over 16 volts the entire time after about 5 minutes in. The craziest thing is that an alternator like mine has the enable signal, and the regulator signal, and that's it... so I pulled the connector on the side of the road which should kill the alternator so it can't charge at all.. damn thing STILL was charging!! So something got shorted inside of it I guess... I'm going to try and pull it off Tuesday night and disassemble the alternator and see if I can rewire the regulator.. but I'm probably not that lucky.

Later!

Steve

 

[TurfBurn]

I may try rewiring it again and do new wires for everything going to it... and then see if it is ok or not... but I doubt it.. I'll tell you I'll be carrying a wrench to disconnect the battery cable from it if it starts overcharging again while I'm driving.

 

[jurgs01]

If we have an electronic voltage regulator (dunno) then you might want to check that. It would have a transistor for the voltage switching (on/off) that could short.

 

[TurfBurn]

If we have an electronic voltage regulator (dunno) then you might want to check that. It would have a transistor for the voltage switching (on/off) that could short.

well you guys with stock alternators have a half and half... you have half the regulator diodes in the alternator and the other half in the computer itself.

Mine is different and all of the regulator is in the alternator... there are some diodes/transistors in the regulator construction... so I think something just went.. but it could still be a bad sense wire.. which I have to try and rule out yet.

 

[TurfBurn]

Well right now I'm planning to do some wiring attempts and probably disassemble the alternator on Tuesday night to see if I figure anything out. If not, then I'll order an alternator for a Mazda 626 2.0L 1994 motor... as that is a fully internally regulated alternator with 80 amp capability that was intended for use on the FS motor. I'll have to figure out which wire is the sense wire and which is the enable wire... but that should be easy as if you only connect one, you'll get a full field charge (which is the issue I have now) and that's the enable wire. Then you connect the other one and you have your sense setup then. So shouldn't be too bad. Rock Auto (www.rockauto.com) has alternators of that sort without a core charge for 130 bucks. So I'll likely do that pending the results I get tomorrow night screwing with the alternator. I vaguely remember Terry saying that they had the alternators reworked... so I'm wondering if something came apart inside.

Later!

Steve

 

[TurfBurn]

And of a completely different note... I never get any sounds of pistons slap at all... no diesel of any sort! The pistons are clearanced by 3.5 thousandths per CP's recommendations.... (3.0 thousandths is "normal" the half thousandth is for the extra boost I'll run).

 

[robp5t]

I checked with my budy my alternator is of a 1998 626 which is probably the same one as 1994 626 my voltage stays at 15 volts all the time I get piston slap only when its cold Je told us to use .004 as our clerance the guy that did my dyno tunning said the harder he pushed the quieter it got .

 

[TurfBurn]

I checked with my budy my alternator is of a 1998 626 which is probably the same one as 1994 626 my voltage stays at 15 volts all the time I get piston slap only when its cold Je told us to use .004 as our clerance the guy that did my dyno tunning said the harder he pushed the quieter it got .

Sweet appreciate the checking... I did a good bit of research myself on the alternators.. the difference between a 94 and 98 alternator is that one had a 3 groove pulley and the other a 4 groove pulley.... so I have to double check them from there and get the right one... then it just has a lamp and a sense wire on it which I can wire up easy enough and I'll be good to go. I'm still hoping that by an act of God that the alternator will work tonight when I run new wires to it... I HIGHLY doubt it... but oh well

JE was a little different with their pistons.... and yeah I imagine the hotter it got the closer the tolerances got and the less piston noise that would be present. I was just very impressed that the CP's were completely noise free...

Again thanks much for the help and the checking! If you have any info on exactly how you are wired that'd be great... based on the wiring diagrams I dug up it doesn't matter hugely how I wire the terminals, not anything that should bother/damage the alternator, but there is one wire that in theory should be switched which I'd like to get correct but I can get that from some simple experimentation too.

Later!

Steve