Finally gave in... bought an automatic

[Stubby79]

My "LED" flasher arrived...



That says LED right on it. You'd think it would prevent hyper-flashing, would just blink at a set rate...um, no. Its identical inside to the original, and does nothing different.

So, having a spare, I figured I might as well make it work for my needs.

This is the built-in shunt that it uses to read current. LEDs don't draw enough current, so it acts like there's a burn out bulb and flashes faster:



You get a certain voltage drop across the shunt, depending on the current that goes through it. Millivolts. I read ~10mV across said shunt from a 10w bulb, which is roughly 1/5th of what the two incandescent bulbs draw. So I needed it to show 50mV for the same load. I replaced it with this:



A fine strand of copper wire, which I ran the same 10w bulb off of to determine the correct length to get 50mV across it and wound around a pen to coil it up tighter. I had originally made a much shorter piece out of MIG (steel) wire, but trying to get the solder to take was more bother than it was worth.

It works perfectly. No more hyper flash. (Just don't put incandescent bulbs back in, or else the new shunt will probably get too hot).

Of course, if I had spent twice as much, I could have bought and adjustable one in the first place. Or done this to the original for nothing.

This is the same basic method that you can change the current limit on an electric bike's controller...within reason, or you'll blow your MOSFETs. Trust me on that one.

[Stubby79]

I've successfully stopped the excessive engine vibration and the consequential intermittent rattle that goes with it, at idle with the engine hot, in drive and at a complete stop. Any other circumstances and it was not present.

To do so, I cleaned the throttle body/plate, the idle air intake port, and, just for good measure, the IAT sensor and MAF sensor. Not sure if it was the secondary clean of the idle air intake port or the sensors, as there wasn't much difference with the throttle body/plate and initial idle air intake port cleaning, but it purred happily thereafter under the same circumstances.

Initially, I thought the 5-year-old battery might be putting excessive load on the alternator and/or doing a bad job of assisting/regulating, but swapping in a new battery made little difference. Old battery passed a rather long load test with my battery tester too, so I'm leaving it alone until it shows real signs of being an issue. That and I have not yet decided if I need something other than the standard starter battery for ecomodding purposes yet.

Discovered that unplugging the alternator (voltage sensor wires and field voltage and all that) took a fair bit of load off of the engine at idle. And it doesn't appear to self-excite, even at higher RPMs, so it should be really easy to disable the alternator on demand...no big contactor or such necessary.

Test ride after all was said and done, and she was still purring smoothly at idle, and neither disconnecting the alt nor temporarily removing the intake pipe (thereby circumventing the MAF sensor) set off the CEL(though I bet it would have after a while), which was a bit unexpected.

Ahh well. issue solved. Time to go order some more LED bulbs and ponder the alternator...

[California98Civic]

Glad you got it figured out. Always a great feeling to resolve these ourselves. My experience with an alt delete suggests a big benefit to small engines like these with their relatively low horsepower. Give a few HP back from an alt delete or a PS deletea and it amounts to a significant percentage.

[Xist]

Have you checked out the EGR system?

[Stubby79]

Originally Posted by Xist

Have you checked out the EGR system?

No reason to at the moment. It should set codes if it has any significant issue.

[Stubby79]

Experimenting...

Modified my step-down module with a fan and a volt meter. Built an output adapter cable to go to the cigarette lighter. Hacked up a dead power tool in for input power...

Engine off, accessory on, 13.0v output...~1a output.


Engine on, alt disconnected, 13.0v output, ~4a output.


Engine on, hvac fan on, lights on, alt disconnected, 14.4v output, ~9.5a out.



The latter example is the usual state I drive to work. Car battery read 11.92v, so the 9.5a was being bolstered by the car's battery. After 5 minutes of testing, the cigarette lighter plug was warm. Not great, but not terrible.

So, with that being fairly successful, it was time to go modular...



Made adapters for some of my other batteries, set everything up with EC5 plugs (under $1 a pair on ebay, good for plenty of amps). I can now step up or step down voltage with one or the other converters, depending on my needs, and have an array of different output connections. No more of each battery only serving one purpose.

I've got plenty of watts on tap now, so I can start experimenting with driving without the alternator connected.

[MetroMPG]

Nice mod!


Looking forward to some numbers.

[teoman]

Looking good!

[rnjason]

Impressive mod.

[California98Civic]

I understand the measurements. (Impressive ad hoc set up, too, McGyver.) Thanks for the demonstration snaps. But I don't understand your need for stepped voltage in order to run without an alternator. What's that about? I am not criticizing... I actually do not understand the need you describe! Lol.