SaabGuy

Everything flickers at idle! Its kinda annoying when I give people test drives and every light has a little flicker at idle. This weekend I am going to clean my battery posts and possibly run new grounds from the battery to the chassy and from the engine/alternator to the chassy.

Anybodey have any other thoughts on this??

VashtheStampede

you could bump up your idle a little, that should get more electricity out of the alternator to help maintain your power needs

SaabGuy

Thats a good idea. Thank you. My car idles at 750 and as soon as I breath on the throttle the lights stop flickering.

The last owner replaced the alternator sometime between the years of 94-96 so hopefully it is still good.

Any other ideas?? Where is the factory ground for the engine??

Sniper_X

One on the bell housing under the clutch master cylinder.
One under the intake stack attached to the hose spider frame.
One on the back of the intake near the brake master cylinder.

However, your problem is ACTUALLY either:

a) bad battery.
b) bad alternator/volt regulator

Alternately, you can put a SLIGHTLY smaller pully on your ALT, but then you have to keep moving it as you change your alternator.

There are at least two alternators that are direct replacements for yours that are higher apmerage.

One is a 3rd gen ALT, i forget the other. (626 maybe)?

SaabGuy

Good idea on the battery. This weekend I will do a specific gravity test on each cell. Battery seems to be strong, cranks over nicely, but who knows.

Hope its not the alternator. Thats the most expensive piece.

Sniper_X

You can get Alternators cheap, no problem.
There are lots of places.

just make sure that you check every peice seperately, rx-7s are notorious for showing bad alternators and batteries when there is another simple problem.