Nippondenso Alternator IC Regulator Cheatsheet

During my starter motor rebuild, i found this reference sheet hanging on the workshop wall. This has the mounting hole distance, regulated voltage value, pinouts and the built-in functions of most, if not all, ND IC regulator. This will save my life one day.

Back With A Bang

I'm back! My long-awaited work leave was finally approved and since last week, i got lots of things done to The Dog. Some of them were minors and shall be noted here for my record. The major ones will have their own dedicated post. So, without further ado, the following are the minor things i got done:

1. Rerouted Clutch Line near the Slave Cylinder

I wasn't lucky enough to have a JDM T50 bellhousing that has the clutch slave on the intake side so previously the clutch line went under the extractors before terminating at the slave cylinder. Should the exhaust decides to crack and fall, it'd take the clutch line with it. Now it's routed on the other side of the extractors, the same side as the slave cylinder. This was before:

No after shot but it should be obvious.

2. Studied my Megasquirt

Mine was built by someone else and he said it's 75% different from the original schematic. I called BS and decided to check it myself. Unsurprisingly it wasn't that much different. Indeed his MS schematic was not exact the copy of v2.2 from B&G's but only because he added some options such as secondary trigger input capability. Why bother doing this? I need to know if the options like boost controller and wideband lambda input shown on MS EFI websites are still applicable to mine to further plan the next step.

3. Picked up my Ultra Racing AE86 Fender Bars

Finally got the time to pick up this item i ordered months ago at the seller's workshop.

The plan is to take the car to a sprayshop and get these installed with the Ebay FMIC intercooler in one go since getting the fenders off to install these means the grill and front bumper is removed as well.

4. Alternator Rebuild

Opened my alternator and swapped the regulator with the spare from my 4A-C (which was already converted to internally regulated when i bought the car. Original Charmant is a stone age external cut-out system). I did this because previously the battery would lose it's charge overnight and i suspect it was a blown alternator. Later i found out it was only due to incorrect ignition key positioning. *sigh*

5. Bride Pros Installation

Custom brackets which still allow the stock seat to be put back.

6. Built a Junction Box for MS

The wiring on mine was previously a spaghetti carnage. I decided a junction box is best to solve this and make the engine bay neater. Here's the box in progress.

See the wire terminal strips? These are where the sensors, ignition and power wires will be connected. The relays will be housed inside the box to reduce engine bay clusterf*ck.

Here's the box in action. It's on the firewall next to the wiper motor. A DB25 serial cable connects the box to the MS.

Notice anything missing from the engine? Yes, i ditched the leak prone distributor and finally got the Ford EDIS kit running. There will be a dedicated post on how to do this later.

Below is the junction box terminal designation for my own record purpose should later i lost the labels on the box. You can ignore this.

7. Starter Motor Rebuild

Used the original starter motor that came with the 4A-C. It struggled to turn the engine on cold starts and, even worse, won't crank on hot starts. Previously i thought it was heat soak since the starter is unfortunately placed on the same side as the exhaust manifolds and so i made a custom heat cover from a thin steel plate. This didn't help. I also installed a relay before the starter solenoid line and this too yielded no success. I then thought it was normal for the 4A-C starter to struggle to crank a smallport 4A-GE considering the higher compression the starter motor has to fight. I was apparently wrong. After finding out that it was the starter solenoid dying and some soldering points on the starter were fried, the necessary actions were taken and now i'm confident the engine will crank on start ups anytime i do it. So, take a note here, a 4A-C starter motor has no problem mated to a high compression smallport 4A-GE. If you find similar problem, now at least you know what could be the culprit. By the way, the starter solenoid on the 4A-C starter is same as Hijet 1000's.