Quote:
Originally Posted by California98Civic
I basically agree, but remember that I have disabled only two of the signal wires, not the large gauge charging wire to the battery, and I can still completely cut-off the alternator. I put my switch in the off position and when I restart the engine with a "bump" or "roll" start, the alt is not on anymore. And it has never come back on in 7 months since unplugging the alt and the two or three months since completing the kill switch project that starts this thread.
I learned, using a process of elimination method you recommended, that if I disabled only the blk/yel and left the wht/blu connected (for the "battery" light on the dash) the alt would come back on. When I studied the wiring diagram it seemed the battery light was able to give just enough power to the alt to fire it up on its own. I'm not fully confident I am correct about that because it is not what seems logical in terms of design, but it is what experiment showed me, so I have followed it.
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Yeah, sometimes its just easier to do what you "KNOW" works, than what makes sense. I don't know if I'm going to do all 4 wires or just 2 of them like you did California, but I charged the battery last night from 12 volts after 3-4 days to 12.8 with my charger connected to my killowatt power reader, and it said it cost me like 8cents to charge it. Now I gotta do some calculations to see if its worth it.
My calculations are as follows
$0.10 / 3days * 365days per year = $12.16 per year
$12.16per year / $4 per gallon = 3.0416 gallons I could buy with that $12.16 cents if I didn't spend it on electricity.
3.0416 gallons * 45miles per gallon = 136.8 miles I could drive on that gasoline
136.8 miles / 1.8miles per gallon increase = 76 gallons needed to be used to equal things out. So as long as I drive more than 45miles per gallon * 76 gallons = 3420miles in that year of paying $12.16 for electricity, I will be better off.
I didn't take into account the possibility of killing the battery earlier than normal, and I know I could have just compared the 8-10 cents it cost to charge to what mileage I actually did drive and gallons I did use in the last 3 days; however, I was doing a ton of tests, that gave me horrible MPG over this past week.
I'll try and do some more calculating after I stop messing with the car for a while.