Higher RPM, Lights flicker. sputters at idle

[Kalisko]

Hey guys. I recently took my car to get a belt change. Well the car came back with a miss and now sputters at idle. When I press in the throttle though the sputter goes away, but the miss remains..

Also, when I rev up to around 2500-3000 RPMs, and I have my turn signal or hazards on, they'll slow down to instead of blinking every second or so, to now blinking once every 3 seconds or so. Anything above 4000 RPMs and the lights will stop flashing, and anything above 5k RPMs, the lights will flicker.

I've tried to look for a short wire somewhere and anywhere, blown fuses, etc. I am stumped.
Has anyone heard of this before?

 

[Robert503]

i would say a short somewhere, but flickering at high rpms is crazy

 

[Kalisko]

Bah. I've looked for hours today and I can't find anything. I'm still looking, but if anyone has seen anything like this, mainly the lights flickering let me know.

-Thanks.

 

[talondave]

My car did dang near the same thing and i changed the altenator and that seemed to fix it.

 

[nedmonds86]

When you "took it in", do you mean to have a shop do it? If say take it back to them and tell them what is happening, most likely they will get in the shop and take care of it as you didn't have this issue before you had them work on the car, and they did mess around with the alt obviously.

 

[Kalisko]

That's the main thing why I've brought it to you guys..

The shop I had basically all my work done on my car at, doesn't know what is going on with it. We spent all day looking at it and they couldn't figure out what's wrong with it. I'm gonna double check the engine ground wire tomorrow. I've heard if it doesn't have a good connection it could cause misses and electrical problems. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[wishnfor4g63T]

i'd say altinator man. I've went thru 5 and i'm on a "good" one now. When others started to fail my headlights would dim and fade i guess strobe would be the best way to put it. untill the alti decided to die. I took it to advanced and they said it was fine, 2 weeks later junk. Could be the belt on the alti pulley to tight or to loose but to me sounds like possibly the altinator. Good Luck.

 

[Defiant]

The slip ring carbons in the alternator are used up, and at higher RPM are losing contact. New generator time. Get one from a Saturn, preferably a freshly-crashed factory one.

 

[Judaspriest22]

had a similar problem with my 1G.. the missing and sputtering was head that needed rebuilt (sticky valve(s)) and the timing was off.

yours is probably just the timing is off. because mine had 200K miles and my springs wore done for.

my 1G has a similar problem of lights flickering at high RPM's and what not, lights will both flicker due to too much electric power or too little. i would suggest changing alternator, but first test it. local auto parts store usually do it for free. i know O'rileys does.


and has a wrench been dropped on the alternator recently? if it lands right it can short it out or damage it. causing it to have too much electricity or too little. im guessing since the lights flicker at high RPM's that its getting to much causing it to cut out.

 

[Kalisko]

I'm going to go test it today, but my main concern is my alternator is about 5000 miles old.. Nothing has been dropped on my alternator as far as my knowledge goes. Would the alternator fuse be pretty hot to the touch? I let the car idle for about 10 min and the fuse was pretty hot to the touch.

 

[Judaspriest22]

no it shouldn't, hot electrical equipment usually means there is too much resistance(if i remember correctly), and when it comes to that i really don't have answers to that, i'm still learning electrical. regardless if it has to do with the amount of resistance in the fuse, it still shouldn't be hot.

 

[Kalisko]

so I took it to advance auto. everything seemed to check out ok. although they wouldn't let me rev the engine past 3k rpms. and it is past 3k when my turn signals act up. I think the next step is to test it myself with a voltmeter

 

[Kalisko]

Also I wanted to add this note. More on the sputtering part of this thread.
When I was looking at the car, I noticed the exhaust fumes made my eyes water. I'm suspecting it is unburnt fuel, due to the potency of it. Never has exhaust made my eyes water before. Could an alternator cause the spark plugs not to fire completely? Causing the sputter, as well as unburnt fuel ?

Just a thought, let me know what you think.

-WIll

 

[mgsx98]

Mine is doing the same thing. Already been through 3 alternators last week the alternator belt snapped right now I'm kinda leaning towards the harmonic balancer. I read somewhere it makes your car do some crazy stuff.

 

[Kalisko]

my balancer is OEM and has 5k miles on it. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary though.

><

 

[costas14]

Alternator and for sputtering it could be the coil pack, i went through 2 coil packs on my gsx and the current one still randomly sputters. Transfer over to coil ignition. I will be soon too. Alternators go on dsm all the time. My 1.8 went through 3 of them within a one year period. To test the alternator, let the car run for a good hour with all the lights etc on then test it with the voltmeter. But im positive ## alternator is bad!

 

[Kalisko]

Bleh ,


I don't want to but It looks like if when I do the voltmeter test, and am still suspicious of the alternator that i'm going to go ahead and get one just so I can rule it out. I hate doing things this way but sometimes with our picky cars we have to..as for the coil pack, we threw on a different coil pack at the shop and it was still working the same way. sputtering and such.

 

[costas14]

still sputtering huh, and smells like fuel in the exhaust, ignition control module can go, ive had it happen and it'll sputter like crazy, and sometimes it wont, when it gets real bad it'll just cut ignition while driving. Happened when i was doing 130mph the first weekend i registered the car! Didnt realize it was that till it kept sputtering and shutting off on me when i went to go pick up parts at a porsche dealership. Pretty emberassing!

 

[Kalisko]

So I took my car to figure out how much an alternator would cost, but I ran into a problem..

I'm not sure which alternator I need.
Info on the car: It's a 95 ECU/Body.
Info on the engine: Imported 1992 Galant VR-4 2.0L Turbo AWD Engine.(of course 6-bolt)

the alternator I have on is supposedly for a 1996-1999 Eclipse GSX.
It's a bosch al4022x.

Shouldn't I have an alternator made for that engine? Or are alot of them the same?
I wanted to double check before I ordered one.

The shop that installed my engine are the ones that ordered/installed that alternator, which is why I'm unsure about it at this moment in time.

-Will

 

[costas14]

is the wiring harness still the same? order it for the car, most are the same just different on auto or manual

 

[Kalisko]

Good news. I talked to the shop to verify which I'd need (2g) and he said he could get it replaced under warranty. Also I'm more leaning towards the alternator anyways regardless of the test that I had because it sputtering at much lower RPMs now. it's barely running now at 400-600 RPMs and it'll drop and catch itself almost stalling out.

 

[Kalisko]

Alternator fixed my turn signals going crazy, but it still sputters. The alternator did fix most of the sputtering though. Should I recheck CAS Timing?