HO Alternator problems

[Oak244 10+ year member]

I have an ohio gen alt in my car... at idle it only puts out about 13v... but the second it hits 1000rpms there is no stopping it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif 14.3-14.6 all day long.
Also what is this screw you guys are talking about? external regulator?

Here is the screw we are talking about in my car. This is on top of the engine.

Behind the throttle as shown here

And here is the screw. The screw goes in the direction of the arrow to increase the rpm's.

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

Seems like a crap shoot with most of the HO alt companies. My EA is working fine. Does 14.5v at idle and survived a 2500 mile trip a week after I put it in. I still get some dimming though, but I'm guessing the single battery is the weak link now....

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

I hear ya. My only guess is that cars must idle at different rates or something. But I can not say for sure of course since I do not build alts lol

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

Yeah I am not sure what to do. Nate told me to turn my idle up to to get the Alt to turn on. I was sitting in a drive through line at Subway today, put the car in park, and pressed on the accelerator to see when the alt kicked on. Of course the air gets stronger when the alt is working at 14+ volts. Needless to say, it had my engine reving higher then I would ever want my car to idle at. Not only would I be wasting a lot of gas, But its also kinda loud. You know how those little foriegn 4cly's are lol.
I still feel I was mislead, in being told I would get 100 amps at idle. He never said I would have to turn up my idle to get it to work. Therefore I kind of think I should be able to return it for a refund.

Dont you?

good luck getting a refund. i was asking him for a refund and the last e-mail i got from him was him saying his lawyers will be contacting me and they never did. i thought i was mislead by him aswell as i was under the assumption i would get a working alternator and never did.

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

Well, I bumped the idle up on my car slowly monitoring the voltage as I turned it. To get the alt to produce 14.6 Volts I had to use almost the whole screw. And the engine sounded like it was running kind of strong. I backed it back down to 14.4 Volts, and it sounded a little quiter. So I tried driving the car, and just as I was warned, the transmission Jerks noticably. Not at all smooth like it did at stock. To keep it smooth I can only get about 12.8 Volts out of it. Needless to say, I am not willing to ruin my ****** with this extra stress, so I wrote EA and told him I want to return it.

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

Ahh what a pain in the a$^^!!! I just went to Advanced Autoparts where I bought my battery. I wanted them to check the battery, and check my stock Altenator. First I find out the Stock Alt is powering, but one of the diodes is not good, and some other part that regulated which direction the power goes. Needless to say its no good, and the local guy who used to repair Alts retired, so now I do not have anyone to fix this one. I was told I would just have to buy a new one.

Then we go out to test the battery. Right away the guy says, well the alt you have in your car is broken too. I said no, it just does not power till I get it at higher RPM. To that he says, well the battery is powering fine, just shows low power, but thats cause your alt does not work. I tried to tell him, that this is a 180 amp alt, and being that I drove up and down the interstate for about a half hour, says to me the battery should be fully charged. He said nope your alts not working....

So I have 2 alts that do not work, and a battery that is broken, but they will not replace because I do not have a properly working Alt!!!!!!!!

 

[baseballer1100 5,000+ posts]

good luck getting a refund. i was asking him for a refund and the last e-mail i got from him was him saying his lawyers will be contacting me and they never did. i thought i was mislead by him aswell as i was under the assumption i would get a working alternator and never did.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/word.gif.64b12e39f936af3b4fff38a1c0bd0244.gif

 

[knukonceptz 10+ year member]

Where in Ohio are you?

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

I live in Troy OH. Its Tim Reason. I have ordered a lot from you lol!

 

[knukonceptz 10+ year member]

Hey Tim, yes you have. Good to put a SN to a "face"....lol Thats a bit far from where we are. Thought you might have been closer. Could have had our tech check it out for you.

As you said idle varies by vehicle, but you should not have to turn up idle to get a charge. Either unit is defective or the output curve was not thought out well for that appilcation. To get more output, you will have some low rpm loss, seems you lost a lot of low rpm output

For a car, Alt turn-on should be near 1000 Alternator RPM and the Crank is usually a 3:1 ratio so at 350 RPM of the motor, the ALT should be "on" Most cars idle at 600-750rpm.

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

Hey Tim, yes you have. Good to put a SN to a "face"....lol Thats a bit far from where we are. Thought you might have been closer. Could have had our tech check it out for you.
As you said idle varies by vehicle, but you should not have to turn up idle to get a charge. Either unit is defective or the output curve was not thought out well for that appilcation. To get more output, you will have some low rpm loss, seems you lost a lot of low rpm output

For a car, Alt turn-on should be near 1000 Alternator RPM and the Crank is usually a 3:1 ratio so at 350 RPM of the motor, the ALT should be "on" Most cars idle at 600-750rpm.

Yeah he said he set it for 750RPM as he thought most vehicles are at that point. He plans to reset it to start charging at 600 RPM instead. I just hope that is enough. What I can not figure out is, say my car runs at 600 RPM, then why did I have to turn my idle up so much that it sounded like it was at 1000 RPM or higher, If it was supposed to give me 100 Amps at 750 RPM? Of course without a RPM meter its all a guess. All I know is it was reving pretty high it seemed.

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

Hey Tim, yes you have. Good to put a SN to a "face"....lol
As for your products. I had to take my car in to get the wheel bearing replaced. The guys opened the hood and went googly eyed! One came back in and said he loved the setup under the hood and asked where I got it. Right away they went looking in the back window but of course nothing is in there yet lol. Just a TON of the Knu wire and RCA's.

I have wondered in the past if Car shops mess with my stereo when they work on it. My guess based on their reaction is yes they do lol. In fact the guy who replaced my windshield, set all my presets on my radio, and now I have this ASM or ASE thing that comes on when the battery has been reconnected. I have no idea what it is, nor how to turn it of lol.

 

[timmay14]

I've had similar problems with my Ohio Generator alt. I have a 2003 Jetta 1.8t with an 180 amp HO alt. At idle, ~850 rpms, my battery is not being charged, but when I get past 1000 rpm's, no problem. I was told this was pretty normal for HO alternators due to how they are rewound, but from what I've been reading, I'm not sure I'm completly sold on that idea. I was thinking about trying a slightly smaller alternator pulley so that at idle, I'm charging the battery. I cant change the idle speed w/o actually reprogramming my ECU. Is there a better way to fix this?

 

[Oak244 10+ year member]

Well I got my Alt back today after being fixed. I just got back after installing it, and driving for about 30 minutes. I came home and at idle the car is running at 14.3 volts and 14.6 at throttle, which is not noticable, so to me its all good. I did have to bump my idle just slightly, and I think thats due to the smaller pulley. When it first went in, the car would almost feel like it was going to stall and the check engine light came on. Just a slight turn of the idle fixed that. So I would say were all good now!