Im at my wits end with this drama now and its giving me the *****.

Basicly its as the title says. When i take off hard and get to WOT, i drop to around 8 volts and get the assosiated misses and stumbling that comes with it. So far ive replaced the cap and rotor, checked the leads (3 months old) for shorts and checks my TPS with no luck.

The only other issues i can find is a slight pause when i accelerate from idle and an EVER so slight 'surge' when occassionally when im driving along at a constant speed.

Has anyone else ever experianced this, or know what it might be?

 

Are you saying the volt guages on the dash shows you at 8 volts?

Is the belt slipping?

 

Both the stock guage and an aftermarket one show the drop. Along with dimming headlights and 'powerful' misses and powerloss.

Not sure about the belt. Its not very old and the tensioner seems taught and i certainly cant hear or see anything to indicate that as an issue.

 

Do you see any powdered rubber along the accessory drive, block, or frame rails? You're running a serpentine setup, right?

Do your local autoparts stores bench test alternators?

 

Definatly cant see anything to indicate the belt is sliping. I did notice though, that it seems to be fine first thing in the morning, and then get worse and worse.

I have a slight feeling it might be bad earthing of the motor and battery, since the battery is in the trunk. How many earthing straps/cables do you usually run off the motor and where should they go to?

 

For ground-straps, I like to use one from the back of a head to the firewall, and one from the front of the block to a sub-frame rail.

A weak tensioner sounds like a plausible theory.

If you still think it's electrical, you could start pulling fuses one-by-one and going on a WOT run until you've narrowed it down to a circuit.