Hey,
I can't believe i did this, but while testing to see if my hunting idle is a grounding problem by touching a 4 guage grounding wire to the negative battery terminal to a bolt on the strut tower i leant across and the wire touched the positive terminal, so it sent a big shock into the strut tower. Now the car stalls when i turn the lights on, and a sound like backfiring occurs if i try and drive it, i've stopped driving it, but what do you think i've fried?

The retard.

 

BTW it's a series 5 turbo...

 

Check the main fusebox and wires going into it, somrthing might be fried

 

Nup not one blown fuse in the main fusebox, and not one in the fusebox under the drivers kickpanel. Could a stuffed battery explain the backfiring? I'm just driving it very slightly and it's backfiring really really badly. Other signs seem to show it's the battery is stuffed, but i don't have a multimeter here to test it. Could the backfiring be caused by a stuffed battery?

 

Don't know how long after you grounded the positive you encountered this problem, but it sounds as though when the headlights are turned on they are "pulling" juice from the ignition system, so voltage must be minimal and not enough to supply both. Best to have battery and alternator checked.

 

It was just one quick spark, i jumped back with the wire, and the symptoms started straight away, I think the batt stuffed, prob alternator stuffed, and i prob fried my panspeed ECU.

 

what does stuffed mean? Is that aussie for screwed?

 

yes