[steffen707]

Hey guys, i've got a 96 civic with a d15z1 lean burn motor in it and i'm looking to do an alternator shut off setup for it.

I've read california98civic's thread and how to on a 98 civic and he said you need to disconnect 2 wires to stop the field from being energized.

I've read that while driving, once the field is energized even if you disconnect that power wire it will remain energized and keep charging. Also I heard from brucepick that he disconnected his 4wire connector from the alternator completely and after a few minutes he was still reading 14v.

I've got a few questions. First, Stinger makes a large 80amp capable battery isolator "relay", I could use this to disconnect the alternator from the battery on the fly, but if the alternator is charging the battery and you just disconnect that connection, will that harm the alternator?

Second question is if anybody knows how the ecu tells the alternator to stop charging on these civics? There is one wire that goes to the ignition, one that goes to the charging light indicator on the dash, 2 that go to the ecu and one that goes to the battery directly.

Since we know the ecu during certain conditions will switch the alternator off, it seems to me it would be easier to just mimic this behavior. But i've read through the manual and I can not figure out if the ecu provides positive, ground, or resistance to the alternator to control its charging.