2013 Civic

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

Anyone put a system in one of these yet? I had a nice system in my 08 but the 9th gens are different, not sure how to go about disabling/bypassing the system that limits the alt. In the 8th gens you could just unplug the ELD, not sure if that would still work or not.

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[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

Can you even change it out?

 

[Jepalan]

There is a lot of good info over at the 9th gen civic forums, includng a hack for putting video on the i-Mid display. Audio/Video & Navigation

I've done some upgrades on the 2012 and 2013 CR-V's and the systems are very similar. What are you looking to do exactly?

 

[09civic 5,000+ posts]

Just ride around with your fogs on.

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

I'm on those forums but very little knowledge there about running serious systems. I had 1600 watts rms running in my 08 but I had an upgraded battery, big 3, h/o alt, and unplugged the eld. They changed the alt plug style and probably more in the charging system, I can't find much on bypassing it like you could in previous gens.

 

[Jepalan]

I've been trying to do some research on this myself. There is a black box on the negative battery terminal that looks like this - correct?:

This is the primary load sensor. It is called a micro shunt. It can handle up to about 1200 amps peak current and 300 amps constant. Here is a spec sheet on one:

http://delphi.com/shared/pdf/ppd/sensors/et_ivt.pdf

Seems there could be two ways to hack this. 1) measure the voltage going out on the sensor wires when A/C and/or lights are turned on. Then use a resistor to sum in some voltage to emulate and tie it to a switch. You would have to do some wire tracing and measuring with a DMM.

2) Find out how much load current must be pulled from the negative terminal to trigger the alt to full volts, then ground some of your system components (maybe front channel amps) to the lug on the ground sensor so the current is detected and will kick in the alt.

Just a couple of ideas.

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

Nice work, it's a good start. I'd be up for tracing wires if it wasn't for my back(3 herniated disks and pinched nerves after the accident that totaled my 08). Do you know what the amperage is in the stock 9th gen alts by any chance?

 

[Jepalan]

Nice work, it's a good start. I'd be up for tracing wires if it wasn't for my back(3 herniated disks and pinched nerves after the accident that totaled my 08). Do you know what the amperage is in the stock 9th gen alts by any chance?

Main fuse is 100 amps. Replacement alternator is shown as a Mitsubishi AHGA81, which is a 95 amp alternator.

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

Anyone have any updates on progress?

 

[blowthemup 10+ year member]

I got 2 sa-10s running at 1ohm on a memphis mcd1000 in my 2013 civic si, everythings holding up good so far. Did the big 3 already and plan for an xs power under the hood soon. Sometimes the alternator wont charge the battery while the car is running (ecu controlled) but id say 80% of the time im at 14v and just over 12 when the alternator isnt charging, probable like 12.3 or so. Waiting on someone to figure out how to bypass this gay charging system and the civic will be a lot better off. Let me know if anyone has questions.

 

[Jepalan]

I got 2 sa-10s running at 1ohm on a memphis mcd1000 in my 2013 civic si, everythings holding up good so far. Did the big 3 already and plan for an xs power under the hood soon. Sometimes the alternator wont charge the battery while the car is running (ecu controlled) but id say 80% of the time im at 14v and just over 12 when the alternator isnt charging, probable like 12.3 or so. Waiting on someone to figure out how to bypass this gay charging system and the civic will be a lot better off. Let me know if anyone has questions.

When beefed up the batt ground for the big-three, did you run the new chassis-to-batt ground directly to the battery terminal or did you run it to the terminal on the ELD shunt block in the pic above?

I believe in theory (no direct evidence) - If you connected chassis ground to the battery terminal then you are effectively bypassing the ELD current sensor and it won't be able to calculate battery state - thus causing it not to charge the batt when it needs it.

 

[blowthemup 10+ year member]

Its connected through the lil box thingy cause I had no other way to connect them using the factory terminal. I dont think it matters where you connect them at the battery, the ELD or whatever is still connected and in the circuit so its gonna charge when it wants to or not. If anything having them connected to the ELD would help because its detecting the extra load from your system and would charge. Just my 2 cents but im no engineer.

 

[Jepalan]

Its connected through the lil box thingy cause I had no other way to connect them using the factory terminal. I dont think it matters where you connect them at the battery, the ELD or whatever is still connected and in the circuit so its gonna charge when it wants to or not. If anything having them connected to the ELD would help because its detecting the extra load from your system and would charge. Just my 2 cents but im no engineer.

It *does* matter, but it sounds like you connected it correctly. The sensor on the negative terminal is a "current shunt" meaning it senses the amount of current being drawn from the battery. The computer uses this to keep track of battery load and charge state and makes decisions about whether to engage the alternator or not.

As long as you are not exceeding the rating of the current shunt (1200 amps peak, 300 rms), then you want all your return current to flow through the shunt so the computer can keep accurate track of load & charge state. In theory doing it this way, it should kick in the alternator when your sound system is cranked because the computer will "see" the load.

You only need to deviate from this strategy in really big SPL systems, in which case a separate alternator and batt for the sound system becomes the favored solution.

 

[blowthemup 10+ year member]

Thanks Jeplan for clearing things up. Like I said majority of the time the alternator is charging but I would like to have it charging all the time. Any way around this little current shunt. Something like a resistor or something to trick the shunt that the car is using more power?

 

[Jepalan]

Thanks Jeplan for clearing things up. Like I said majority of the time the alternator is charging but I would like to have it charging all the time. Any way around this little current shunt. Something like a resistor or something to trick the shunt that the car is using more power?

I have a 2013 CR-V and am asking myself the same questions. I believe the connection from the current shunt to the car computer is CAN Bus (digital communications signal) which greatly complicates the bypass process. I intend to get out an o-scope and digital analyzer to reverse engineer this, but not until it warms up.