Big 3 made things worse

[Stalin-ohaulic]

Your problem is nothing electrical. Your problem is Mechanical. When you draw too much current through your alternator, and nothing blows up, it creates a lot of mechanical resistance. Let's break it down. When a current passes through a wire, it creates a magnetic field. Also, when a magnetic field passes through a wire it generates a current. Your alternator has a rotor with magnets rotating inside of your stator. It generates a current. Everything is great to this point.

Well when you have high current being drawn from the coils in the stator, their magnetic force becomes stronger. They try to grab the magnet in the rotor and stop rotating. It will create great mechanical stress. This in turn makes the alternator pulley not want to turn. This causes either belt slippage or cause the belt to slow down. When the belt slows down, it puts stress on the engine. Enough stress and it can kill your engine. The only solution in a case like this is to set your idle faster with a reprogrammed ecm or just rev the engine a little, or just turn it down.

 

[94'BLKBRD 10+ year member]

I hope you're wrong and my engine doesn't blow.....lol

So what mechanical issue can cause my car to click and not turn on?

 

[Stalin-ohaulic]

I hope you're wrong and my engine doesn't blow.....lol
So what mechanical issue can cause my car to click and not turn on?

I made the statement like I was 100% sure on that. I have seen what i say happen, but that doesn't mean it's for sure true in your case. It certainly sounds like it, and it's particularly common with manual transmission vehicles. In your case, could it be your spark plugs or some part of your ignition system? If your car is randomly dying and having trouble starting, maybe you're not getting enough spark.

 

[94'BLKBRD 10+ year member]

Its an auto. Car hasn't died. To me its electrical. When it clicks it reminds me of when my old camaro had battery connection problems. I don't have an idea about the idle problem though.

 

[Bobby322 10+ year member]

i had kinda the same problem on my old '73 duster. I didnt do the big 3 but I did have a system ~1500w. My cars electrical ended up taking a huge crap on me and I replaced the alt and added grounds (just in 4 guage) and it didnt help. So I took it to an electrical mechanic and turns out it was my voltage regulator. I would get "click, click, click" then after 100 times my car would randomly start.

 

[94'BLKBRD 10+ year member]

i had kinda the same problem on my old '73 duster. I didnt do the big 3 but I did have a system ~1500w. My cars electrical ended up taking a huge crap on me and I replaced the alt and added grounds (just in 4 guage) and it didnt help. So I took it to an electrical mechanic and turns out it was my voltage regulator. I would get "click, click, click" then after 100 times my car would randomly start.

Isn't voltage regulator in the alternator? So when you fixed it, you replaced the alternator again?

 

[lovindabass]

what wire did you splice exactly ? was it a power wire? or was it a smaller awg wire like anything from 12 awg to 22 awg? can you snap a pic of the spliced wire? chances are you cut your voltage regulator wire. A lot of cars from late 90's and up are controlled by your computers. I would start by trying a butt connector. also try a 4 awg pos wire for your big 3 next time. with too much voltage and current draw you can sometimes melt off your charging stud. also it sounds to me that you have a vaccume leak. I had an 84 mustang and i could pound on it all day but at idle it would choke up. now i would also like to know how you managed to fry the end of a 0 awg wire with out some serious arcing. you need to take this to a shop and have them fix it. doing a big 3 is not all that hard. no offense but still look to the firewall. make sure there are no open ended plugs or any little spouts where a vac hose would go. if there is an open hole try having the car at idle and then plug the hole with your finger. see if that changes anything. one other thing do you have any issues with the gears shifting? vac leaks can also lead to having problems allowing the auto trany shift from lower gears. some times very little but others it seems that it wont go from first.

 

[lovindabass]

also check your selonide because i think you may have damaged the starter selonide. damage to that could cause all the issues you have listed. when its chocking does the dmm show voltage drop? like lower than the battery rests at? cuz if the selonide is messed up it causes problems with allowing current to the starter also it stores current so it could just drain the issue. also it does cause current to pass thru it. and it may be just at low rpms that the engine moves enough to cause the problems. just another theory.

 

[94'BLKBRD 10+ year member]

what wire did you splice exactly ? was it a power wire? or was it a smaller awg wire like anything from 12 awg to 22 awg? can you snap a pic of the spliced wire? chances are you cut your voltage regulator wire. A lot of cars from late 90's and up are controlled by your computers. I would start by trying a butt connector. also try a 4 awg pos wire for your big 3 next time. with too much voltage and current draw you can sometimes melt off your charging stud. also it sounds to me that you have a vaccume leak. I had an 84 mustang and i could pound on it all day but at idle it would choke up. now i would also like to know how you managed to fry the end of a 0 awg wire with out some serious arcing. you need to take this to a shop and have them fix it. doing a big 3 is not all that hard. no offense but still look to the firewall. make sure there are no open ended plugs or any little spouts where a vac hose would go. if there is an open hole try having the car at idle and then plug the hole with your finger. see if that changes anything. one other thing do you have any issues with the gears shifting? vac leaks can also lead to having problems allowing the auto trany shift from lower gears. some times very little but others it seems that it wont go from first.

The wire I spliced was the alt to positive wire. It's fixed now, I added a battery lug connector. There are no vacuum hoses close to the Big 3 locations. The alternator is located on the lower drivers side, no vacuum hoses close by. The engine block to chassis ground is next to the alternator, so no vacuum hoses close by. The negative ground is right next to the battery, again, no vacuum hoses close by.

As far as the Big 3. That is the easiest thing I have ever done. Measure, cut to length, add/crimp terminals, and then add them on to the stock wire. There's no way I could have messed up the Big 3.I found a loose plug wire today but that didn't change anything.

The car shifts/drives normal until I come to a stop. I didn't fry the end of 0 gauge wire. It was 4 gauge power wire, how it happened? Shittt I'd like to know as well.

My car didn't stumble like it is now until I installed the new system. Which was, unscrewing the old amp and screwing in the new one in the same location. Used the same connections, added the new fuse supplied with the amp. That's when I discovered the burned 4 gauge power wire.

Something happened when I turned on my car to change the gains on my new amp.

The clicking problem started when I did the Big 3. Fast forward 2 weeks. Now that I installed a new system my car begins to stumble at idle.

Troubleshooting for tomorrow:

Clean or Replace IAC sensor(Idle Air Control)

Move negative connections to top post since the side terminal is a little stripped.

Check the spark plug wires and spark plugs one more time.

 

[lovindabass]

well just because wires are not near any vac lines doesn't mean that in doing anything under the hood that you could have touched one. I'm just saying that its possible that the vaccume lines could cause the issues as well.

 

[jadon087 10+ year member]

I'm gonna guess its the Idle Air input control valve, seems kinda like what my explorer was and i thought it was the battery or electrical. Then went to autozone picked that part up replaced it in 5 min and boom my engine no longer idle low and it quit shacking at start up.

 

[94'BLKBRD 10+ year member]

I'm gonna guess its the Idle Air input control valve, seems kinda like what my explorer was and i thought it was the battery or electrical. Then went to autozone picked that part up replaced it in 5 min and boom my engine no longer idle low and it quit shacking at start up.

2 months ago I go to turn on my car and that shit starts to idle at 2k rpms. I was like WTF? It kept surging, going to 1k then going back up to 2k. Disconnected the battery and everything was back to normal. That's the symptoms of a bad IAC sensor(just learned today). So HOPEFULLY my idle problem is the IAC sensor.

 

[Varinabassing 10+ year member]

Maybe opti as well when my opti went i was noticing weird idle but it got worse as time went on to the point it would acclerate right you will know eventualy if this is the problem i wouldnt chnge it til your sure because ts a realllllll Pain in the ASSSSS to do and runs for a pretty penny as well i guessing you have a lt1

 

[94'BLKBRD 10+ year member]

Maybe opti as well when my opti went i was noticing weird idle but it got worse as time went on to the point it would acclerate right you will know eventualy if this is the problem i wouldnt chnge it til your sure because ts a realllllll Pain in the ASSSSS to do and runs for a pretty penny as well i guessing you have a lt1

My Camaro is a 98'..LS1 //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif I also have a 94' ***** Am so I know what you mean about the POS Opti.

 

[Varinabassing 10+ year member]

oh whoops saw the 94 and figured lol lovethe ls1s but ovemy lt1 mre lol funner to build nd surprise those ls1s when i roll past you know