Not sure if I have a bad alternator/luck/etc...

But I have rebuilt the stock alternator 3 maybe 4 times in the course of two summers (under warranty).

First couple of times I was told that the heat is melting the solder within it and causing it to fail.

I then had Magnus fabricate a one-way heat shield, which sets between the waste-gate dump/dp and the alternator. I heat-wrapped the dp (dump was already done), and placed a home made "tube-duct" to carry cold air directly to the alternator.

Still no luck, alternator died shortly after.

I've been looking around, and I found new alternator replacements ranging from $120 to $250 with different AMP specs.

I've also looked at the Saturn alt (RTM-Ziggy) but is it necessary to run the relocate kit with this option?

No sound system or heavy electric draw in the car, just HID's.

Any brand recommendations/other options?

Thanks guys,

Maybe look at your battery. The alternator is a battery maintainer, not a charger. Have you checked voltage drop across your wires? You may be inadvertently forcing the alternator to work harder than it should.

New battery was installed by Manuel, but I got another one just to be safe, re-grounded everything...I'm however running a smaller size battery, 400AMP I THINK, I will double check the ratings (half size the stock battery size)

What about your wiring?

All good. Will do another run down this weekend.

FYI everything I've mentioned above is roughly 6 months old. But getting ready for this summer and want to avoid this ongoing issue.

Give this thread a read in regards to the Saturn alt, no relocation is needed, but a bit of grinding is needed to be done to make it fit in the stock location. Some people need to grind the block and alt, I was able to just grind a tiny bit on the block to get it to work (full tension range with stock belt, stock 7bolt motor that came with the '99 eclipse).

http://www.ca.dsm.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=47237&Number=344308#Post344308

I would be inclined to agree with Ryan, as 'bad' as the stock alt is, you shouldn't be going through this many with just heat. If voltage doesn't give any definite answer, you might want to try to get your hands on an ammeter and hook it in series with your battery to alt cable and see how much is being flown along the wire, vary RPMs and just see what the alt is actually doing.

Where are you getting the rebuilds from?

If it's a crappy rebuild it will fail in short order. I've had 3 on my car myself.

I got the saturn 220 amp alternator from DB electric in the states. Cost me $300 including all taxes, duty, and brokerage.

It's a decent place that is doing the rebuilt.

But I've decided to go with a Saturn alternator via Ziggy once I figure out few things, and keeping the stock location.

Ive had a read through Andrew's write up and another on DSMTunders.

I`m installing the Saturn Alternator (from Ziggy) into a 95 talon,

The jay racing Pigtail has only 3 colours:
(red, black, and brown)

the stock harness has:

(white, red, black with yellow, and green)

most the articles I read are for 99 with different colours

which wires do I match with the Pigtail harnesses ( Pigtail )

thanks

I finally had a chance to hook it up yesterday and put everything back together.

The info I found was:

- Red with Red (12V source)
- Black with Black&yellow (voltage metering)

I had to do a lot of grinding on the alternator to get it to fit and an "L" bracket from Home Depot to get it tensioned enough for the belt.

Fired up first crank once I reconnected the Battery & fuel Pump and everything seems to be working great.

Hopefully the Saturn alternator holds up better than my old OEM unite.

I'll post few pictures this weekend and maybe they can be beneficial for someone looking to do the swap without relocate.