88 crx Si electrical

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cwaskoviak

New Member
I recently bought an 88 crx si. It has a D16Z6 Vtec head installed with a p28 ecu ,Zex cam and valve springs, New clutch installed including flywheel resurface,head on car has 50,000 miles and block has 150,000 ,car has projector halo headlights and a full pioneer and infinity system that will come with car. Other mods include OBX billet crank pulley ,Cold air intake,Msd blaster 2 coil and Msd pro cap and rotor with 7mm plug wires,Car has OBX header with custom 2.5 inch pipe back to OBX muffler angle mounted....now everything was going great until this morning, the stereo power is going in and out. I thought it might just be the power or ground or something. But now the rpm gauge and cluster lights are going in and out. I checked the battery and alternator and both are good...what else could it be?
 
So you are saying that everything is going in and out at the SAME time??

Stereo is amp'd or deck power? Deck is going on/off or just the sound? I need more info

Grounds on the motor maybe. Check ground off battery (where it connects to car) and the variety of other grounds. Do not quote me but 5 grounds in total.....I think?
 
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the deck with just shutoff and on, everything including the sound. but it only does it when i am moving. that makes me think that it is just a bad connection that is being knocked loose. I checked the main ground off the battery. do you know where the other ones are? could it be a bad connection to the ignition with the remote wire? I am almost wondering if the alternator connection is loose. The wiring for the whole engine is done pretty sloppy, none of it is tucked at all. I am going to go buy a bunch of wire and start redoing it...anything i should know about disconnecting things? Like will i reset something or anything like that?
 
oh, and it had a hard time starting today too. thats the first time it has done that to me too. If i didnt give it gas it would just die...then it went back to normal.
 
Other grounds by the thermostat housing

Check the starter too but its probably fine

Any power supply ran straight off the battery? Like an amp or something else?
If so.....does it lose power too? Hard to check when you are driving lol

Had a hard time starting? Like no click....no turn of the starter?

Sounds like a ground to me

You could check the connections to your fuse box too
 
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I re-read your last post
So your are saying it needed you to press down on the gas pedal to stay running?
Check your grounds first and hopefully you find something loose. You may have two different issues....
 
I found a few different issues right out the gate. First of all the decks remote wire was just ran to the fuse box inside the car and stripped long enough so the wires could be shoved into a plug with the fuse. I think i might just have too much running off the battery. the deck, a 2000 watt amp, and an extra fan that is mounted to the radiator are all directly hooked to the battery. I found a wire running to the back somewhere and the plastic is melted really bad...I am going to pull that tomorrow and figure out where that is going. The amps remote wire is hooked up to the battery too and there is just a toggle switch. I turned it on today and it smelled like electrical fire and the car filled with smoke. So i am going to pull that toggle out and actually wire the amp correctly. So the battery that is in the car seems really small, Ill look tomorrow to see what size it is. would it hurt to put in a bigger battery since i have so much running off it? I am just going to go get 10 and 8 gauge wire tomorrow and start running new wire everywhere. I didnt know that there were so many grounds, so I need to locate them all and make sure they are all good. Yeah, it did it again this morning with the not running without pushing the gas. It only lasts about 15 seconds. Im not sure if it is related but something about the idle regulator is going bad because sometimes when idling it will bounce about 500-700 rpms.
 
when it doesnt want to start it turns over a little it just seems like it needs more power. the interior lights are dim and the seatbelt beep is weak...
 
Sounds like a few monkeys owned your car before you. Re-wiring the amp is a good idea. I would take your head unit out.....its probably a rats nest of wire too! Run the remote off the deck and make sure you have constant and key power wired correctly. Check the wiring of this radiator fan. Essentially, I would trace everything off that battery and the effed up things someone did at the fuse box. Remove everything that is attached to the battery (except the main cables) and re-wire the amp/radiator fan. Its sounding more and more like a short in the system. Sadly, you get to do a bunch of re-wiring and hope this solves the issue. Not sure on your battery being too small but nothing would surprise me about the history of your car's electrical eff ups. If its smaller than the pan its resting inside, get a bigger one.

2000 watt amp? Sounds like some brand that blows their specs out of proportion. AKA line of horseshit that they print on the top of their amp. More like 2000 watts at 3% distortion (or more) But if (and I use this term loosely) the amp is truly 2000 watts, you headlights wouldn't just fluctuate when bass hits but they would almost shut off without a capacitor of some sort and your alternator wouldn't handle it either.

Re-wire it and see if the problem stops. If it doesn't....unplug the amp and see if I am wrong and you have this monster amp from hell.
 
In terms of the idle....you can check/clean the IACV and the FITV but you should research the procedures if you do not know how.
They could stop the hunting idle if they are cleaned.
FITV controls idle when motor is cold and IACV controls the idle when the car reaches running temps.
No Check Engine Light.....right???
 
i am going to start rewiring right now. Yes the check engine light is on, previous owner said it was due to the o2 sensor being taken out.
 
Check those codes.....never listen tot he crap some seller tells you. Hopefully its just the O2 like he said.
 
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