what are everyones thoughts on the stator issue? The stator is an output only device and is passive. I am not sure how the regulator or ecm going out would cause the stator to go bad. I would think it would be the other way.
Though, if you dropped a leg of the stator, you would have only two phases out of the three. With the regulator rectifier being a three phase system, the only effect that I think the loss of a leg would be, would be an overall lower averaged voltage, and less work for the regulator to do.
This assumes the the regulators job is to only CHOP the voltage, meaning it has no effect on a voltage lower then it was designed for.
Though, dropping a leg of the stator might cause some interesting things to happen on the regulator / rectifier.
On another thought, I wonder what would happen if the regulator failed in such a way as to short the terminals of one side of the stator. I wouldn't think this would have too much of an impact the stator, as it is just coils, but it might be possible that prolonged exposure to high currents (if high side is put to ground via regulator / rectifier fault) might take a side of the stator out.
Just trying to think through some causality in this deal. Interesting for sure!!