I hate DSMs! Electrical Problems. [Merged 2-9]

[NJGSX96]

Well the other day I went out and bought a new alternator and battery for my 1G. Of course the bolt for the alternator was in backwards and couldn't come out without removing the turbo/manifold/O2/exhaust, but thanks to my friend Phil and his Sawzall, that was a minor issue. Anyway, when I went to the parts store, they had a 75AMP and 65AMP. The 75AMP is for automatics, but was identical to the 65AMP, which was for manuals, so I went with the 75AMPer. Why not, right? Get it installed, everything plugged in, clean up the battery connections, install the new battery, fire it up, all good. This was Monday. Tonight after work I go back to the car and figure I'll add some goodies I got for my b-day while the car is down. About an hour later I have installed my nice new cockpit adjustable hallman MBC and I swap out my plug wires for the NGK wires I had on before since my Magnecors bit the dust... again. That is it. I do nothing else. Plug up the laptop, start the car, fire up TMO, log battery. 5 seconds into starting the car I hear a high pitched occillating whine and with it the lights are dimming and brightning. TMO battery log looks like I am logging O2 dipping to 11v and rising to 14.5v over and over. Finally steadies at 13.9v and the whine becomes constant, whih is coming from the alternator. I let it idle for 10 minutes. All looks good. I got out for a little test drive and as soon as I get to the bottom of my hill the log shows 12v and i can see the lights dim! Every time I come to a stop it dips to 11v and the dash lights for battery, coolant come on, then go off. I get back home as quick as I can, and park it. At this point the lights are all dim and the log shows 11.6v.

Is this for real? Is my alternator already f#cked up? In all my years of driving I have NEVER had to replace an alternator. is this common for them to die or come bad out of the box? Is the 75AMP not compatible with my car? Where the f#ck do I start to check now or is it just the alternator?

 

[bOOTh_000]

i have a 92 NT. The other night my car wouldnt start after i was using the ac and the wipers. i left it sittin there and went back in a few hours and it started right up. When it sits at idle the car will all of sudden go lower idle and the cd player and lights will dim and turn off but when i apply the gas its back to normal...my alternator was just done 9 months ago as well...

question... i was told my ps belt was shot and needed a fix (it squeals but the mechanic cant tighten it ### its too worn) now would that cause the alternator to not put out enough charge for the battery ### the belt is loose?

its wierd to me because that battery is quite new and the indicator dot doesnt say its a bad battery... just says it needs a charge so...

any help is much appreciated!!!!
JOHN

 

[4thsydecustoms]

it sounds like your alternator is having issues... try measuring the output on your alternator with a voltmeter.... you car will output more power at a higher rpm regardless... but alternator should be putting out atleast 13.8v at rpms above 2k....

a bunk alternator can happen sometimes.... but the part would likely still be under warranty.....

 

[alex99gst]

I hooked it all back up and the oxygen sensor did start cycling again. I also fixed the fuel pressure. I accidentally set it to 37 with the vacuum line attatched. Just did a log and I still have a boost leak. I'm going to try bypassing the boost controller and see if there is still a problem. I have tried boost leak testing but even with soapy water nothing bubbles. I took my PCV valve off and it was leaking pretty good, just not enough to only allow me to boost 8psi. If you have any ideas that would be appreciated. Thanks for the help man.

 

[missouri_dsm]

can you hear any hissing where air is escaping? with a leak that bad there has to be air hissing pretty loud.

 

[alex99gst]

I can hear it when I open the oil cap and then I took the PCV valve off and hooked it directly up to the air compressor and it leaked at around 10psi, but I doubt that is the only thing leaking.

 

[missouri_dsm]

after you replace the pcv valve do another boost leak test and see what happens. ya never know

 

[avw0516]

Alright, just recently my car has been having some very annoying electrical problems and I think they might be related. First off my cd player, radar detector, and gauges are wired into the same power source and none of them work. This led me to beleive that the fuse was bad, but I changed the "radio" fuse near the drivers foot and it did not change anything. To go along with this my battery will not hold a charge and goes bad very fast, I just put a new one in a week ago and it is dead already. If anyone has any input as to what is causing this problem I would love to hear. Thanks.
-Andrew

 

[steve]

Did you check that your alternator is charging the battery?
Did you test the fuse you replaced to see if it was bad or just change it?

Steve

 

[luv2rallye]

Also test for a short or battery drain: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1496998#post1496998

 

[avw0516]

Well, my alternator is bad, but would that affect all the other stuff as well? Sorry I'm not good with electronics. The fuse that I swapped out ended up not being blown, I tested it today. I asssume that I got a short somewhere but I dont know how it happened or where I should begin to look. Thanks so far guys.
-Andrew

 

[steve]

Keep checking the other fuses. Normally you have two fuses feeding power to the radio.
On a 1G 10A fuse #4 provides the running power and 10A fuse #19 the backup power to retain the settings but it's not uncommon for the radio wiring to be all messed up after all these years and the general low quality work done installing aftermarket radios.

Steve

 

[1sickgst]

First of all I want to say thanks in advance for your help. Here's what I've got. I took my '97 GST A/T in for a timing belt change and had the balance shafts removed as well. Well, when I got it back, none of the dash gauges worked and the windows won't roll up. Not to mention injector #4 is fouling up and I think they said it's stuck open. They scanned the car with their 'Snap-On Tools' machine and 'scoped' it and they couldn't find any shorts or blown fuses. They did pull the ECU and said it was bad. The car still runs; like crap though. So I found a matching ECU and ordered it but it didn't solve anything. So, either I've got two bad ECU's (owner of 2nd ECU said it was fine) or something else is up. I need help guys. My car has been like this for two weeks now. Also, I do have a '95 EPROM ECU that I was keeping until I got DSMlink. They tried plugging it in but I guess it didn't match and wouldn't even start the car. Could I use this in anyway possible to solve anything. Would I have to have it rechipped in order to run the car. Thanks again.

 

[240kid]

i just hooked up some power to my 95 eclipse for the first time and it seems to have some electrical issues. The driver seat doesnt move, the windows and locks dont work and the headlights wont turn off....any ideas?

 

[hopeformylife]

I hate to start so basic, but have you checked your fuses? Give us some more info on what you may have checked allready or anything related.

 

[luv2rallye]

the headlights wont turn off....any ideas?

Stuck headlight relay or bad headlight switch.

 

[240kid]

checked fuses already...anybody have a link that shows where all the grounds are?

 

[HighPSIRacing]

CRAP! Sounds like you've got a bad fuse or damaged wiring somewhere... I've seen crap like this happen and replaced EVERY fuse to find that 1 that didn't look blown was in fact bad. Doesn't sound like an ECU issue to me though. Your 95 EPROM ecu SHOULD run the car though so that's something else to deal with!

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

Take a simple test light and probe all of your fuses to check and see if they light up. They should light up when you touch both side's of the test slots. Also check the power to your injector to see if it has a constant 12V or not. Check power to your windows as well. Sounds like you blew a fuse of pinched a wire off.

 

[The_one]

Hi All,
My sister has a stock 97 gs spyder and her car is having a few weird electrical problems that i don't know where the problems come from. I also check all the fuses but i couldn't find any broken/burn fuses. Her car runs and drives fine and here are the electrical problems the car has.

1. windows won't work
2. No stereo
3. The AC unit won't work
4. Once the headlight is turned on it will stay there unless you pull out one of the battery terminals
5. Battery light on all the time

If i pull out either battery terminal and leave it out for 5mins and put it back on problem 1, maybe 2, 3, and 4 dissapear for a few minutes. Then the process start all over again.

Any ideas or sollutions to these problems guys ?

Thank you Very much

 

[Spooling99]

Try checking the ECU. That seems like alot of wierd things to pop up. Did they all start at the same time?

 

[The_one]

Try checking the ECU. That seems like alot of wierd things to pop up. Did they all start at the same time?

What are things i should check within the ECU? No, they all not start the same time.

 

[Spooling99]

Open it up and check for leaking capacitors. How long has this been going on?

 

[The_one]

Open it up and check for leaking capacitors. How long has this been going on?

probably 2 days

 

[1990talon]

Also on my sisters first car a nissan sentra long time ago she actually had a short and melted some stuff and some of it was on the back of the fuse box you might want to check there and inspect the rest of the wires vissualy. you may see something out of the ordinary just something to check. Any work been done on the car lately?

Good luck,
Brandon

 

[The_one]

Also on my sisters first car a nissan sentra long time ago she actually had a short and melted some stuff and some of it was on the back of the fuse box you might want to check there and inspect the rest of the wires vissualy. you may see something out of the ordinary just something to check. Any work been done on the car lately?

Good luck,
Brandon

I did the visual fuses inspection yesterday, beside that i didn't do anything else much