When I turn the car to on position, the beeper beeps and the voltage on the car is read at slightly above 12v. Well when I go to start position there is a click noise, kinda like when something arcs and all the power to the car dies... I have to take the positive and negative wires off the battery and disconnect the starter silinoid and then reconnect everything to get the power back to normal. This happens everyonce in a while. I have changed the CPU. My horn isnt workign either, dont know if they are related, any ideas?

 

Have you pulled the starter off the car & hooked it up via jumper wires from the battery to see what it's doing? Or tried a new starter, for that matter?...

Battery could also be weak, even if it's showing 12v...How old is it?

 

Well I have tried 3 different batteries, and 2 different starters. 1 new starter and a new batt. This only seems to happen everyonce in a while, no real pattern to it either. I dont think that it is the starter or the battery.

 

Yeh, I wouldn't think they'd be the culprit(s) either, then...

Hmm...So everything's cool until the key hits the start position, right?

Check the positive cable run from the battery to the starter closely- see if anything might be contacting the chassis or other bare metal, that might be causing a short when the big juice is flowing during the starter phase...

If you're not blowing any fuses, at least that narrows it down a little...What does the voltage drop to when it does this? Close to nothing?

 

Ya, everything is cool until you turn to start. It will be around 13v when in the on position then when you go to start it makes that noise and everything dies, voltage is around 7v and drops slightly at this point.

 

7v is too low of a drop -- it should only drop to about 10v at most, maybe 9. Was that a new starter, or a rebuilt starter?

David

 

Is your sub-zero starting system still on the car? The motor, in particular...

What about the blower motor switch position? Is it on when this happens?

Only other thing I can think of is that the ECU is shorting the "crank" signal to ground, but that seems kinda far-fetched...

 

No sub zero, blower is off. Besically it seems like the whole car dies... Then when you go back to the on position it will not do anything... The starter is brand new, I have tried a few different ones get the same result at time. Again it is only every once in a while this happens, sometimes more than others. Could something in the ignition inside the car be causing this?

 

I wonder if your starter cut relay is somehow shorting out on you...Did you have the factory alarm on the car at some time in the past (or even now)?

Maybe the ignition switch doing something funky?

 

does the stereo reset? or is there some way to tell if the power completely dies. mine did that and I just had to clean the negative battery terminal. the haynes manual has a list of things that causes ur car to lose power when engaging the starter.

 

Sounds like bad/corroded battery cable terminals and nothing else.

 

yea, try new battery terminals. back in the winter, my red one had that problem, i would get nice 13v, then try to start the car it would just shut off all power completely.

 

i had this same problem!! i thought everything had blown out from the starter to the ecu to the alternator but i didnt end up needing to replace anything.

i ended up just cleaning up all the major electrical connections (battery, starter, alternator) and it starts fine now.

***i think this may be caused by a faulty or shorted stareter solenoid that manages to suck all of the car's juice right why you try to start. howeve getting the wiring to 100% seems to fix that.**

if all else fails, the car should push start and that will atleast let you know for sure if its realy a bad starter.

 

There is a factory alarm in the car. There isnt a stereo installed as of now, but the logicon doesnt operate after this happens. All the battery terminals have been replaced. I changed out the negative battery cable from the 12gauge to a 2gauge, didnt seem to help. All the connection on the alternator and starter have been cleaned.

 

There aren't a whole lot of things that could be causing this- the "start" position on the ignition switch only energizes a couple of circuits, depending on options. You're just going to have to go over each component (and wiring) in the circuits to find your bad guy. I've listed most, if not all, of these components above in the posts. Only one I left out is if you have an auto tranny, then you have a starter signal to your cruise control system, if that's on your car...

 

I dont have any of my tranny sensors hooked up could this cause the problem? It is a 5-speed manual...

 

Maybe, probably not though, unless you've got some really weird stuff going on. Why don't you have your tranny switches connected? Your ECU needs to know when you're in neutral, and 5th, to properly run the car's systems...

 

Mine does exactly the same thing sometimes. The connectors for my battery terminals are stripped and don't tighten very well. So when I go to crank it over sometimes I guess the voltage pops the wire just loose enough to not work or something. Soooooo, I just go fiddle with it 'til it works.

Btw, it's on ramps for other problems or I would fix the terminals. Right now it's low priority. So it's not like I'm driving like this .

 

I didnt connct them because I havent gotten around to trackign down where they do on the harness, the j-spec tranny had different connectors....

 

Ahh, OK...

Well, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which wires are your neutral switch (continuity through the switch in neutral, but no other position), your 5th switch (no continuity in 5th & rev, continuity all other positions), and your reverse switch (continuity only in rev)...

Then, go the FSM for the ECU pinout (in the fuel section), and get the wiring manual for pinout wire reference colors for the harness down there at the tranny, and start a-splicin'...