JohnWohl

alright, so i have money now and can fix this finally, but i need to know a couple of things.

here are the symptoms i am experiencing:

startup: turn key to 'on' position (not start), voltage gauge reads about 10v. turn key to start, all lights go out and gauges go to 0, then if i hold it for a few seconds i hear 'click' click click' and then vroom everything comes to life. sometimes i have to do it a few times before it will start but it alwys does. by stereo settings are reset but the clock doesn't show 12:00 (not sure if it resets when neg is disconnected or not), btw i have the flooding problem and this is not the same thing.

driving: horrible horrible gas mileage, around 8mpg, if that. sometimes out of the blue my speakers will emit a very nasty noise and when i stop at a light the lights dim, my stereo resets, and the car may try to stall. i continue to hear the noise from the speakers, the tone of which corresponds to the pitch of the engine (i believe it is called RF noise). also 3800 hesitation.

so, ive got three posibilities so far. bad battery, but if it was that the car prolly wouldn't start at all. bad alternatior, but if it was that the car prolly wouldn't run and it shows 12v at idle. or bad grounds, which is what im going with until proven otherwise.

i read this

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=199558

and i plan to do those steps, except for the boost sensor cuz i dont think i have one of those.

a few questions tho:

how do i figure out where exactly it is shorting out? i have a multimeter, i just need to know what to do. i'd hate to go through the whole thing (removing uim and such) and still have it not fix the problem.

do i remove the existing grounds at those locations?

are there any more grounds i need to check/fix?

are there any additional locations i should ground?

do i need only to ground the 2c on the ecu, or to reground all of the pins listed in that thread to one ground and then to chassis?

how do i tell which solder points on the ecu need to be resoldered? i know how to solder but i've never de-solder/re-soldered anythign before.

and once i've got it all done, how do i tell if everything is grounded properly?

thanks for the feedback, any additional threads that cover grounding in detail would be appreciated as well.

i've searched but i come up with so many threads (most pretty much unrelated) that i get confused and i need to do this tomorrow so i need accurate info.

thanks again, i appreciate it

hopefully once this is done she will run like she should again.

John

rx7_rat

your alterbater should show 13.5-14.7 volts at idle, and if it is low what is happening is that the alternator is charging the batteryng but a slow rate so that is why can can restart but slowly, and depending on long this has been going on your battery may be near quits also, just take the car to auto zone ect to have the alternator checked while on the car.

hope that helps

rat

rx7_rat

also thatis why you get bad gas mileage becuase you are not generating a hot spark to burn all the fuel so hense the hesiation

rat

JohnWohl

ill stop at the autozone tomorrow morning before i begin with the grounds (still going to do them, for good measure if anything) and ill get that checked. that would suck if i had a bad alt.. oh well.. pay/play i suppose.

anyone else got any ideas or answers to my other quandrys??