okay guys,

i have noticed lately that my car hasnt been running right. It hasnt seemed to have as much power. Also i noticed that my voltage gauge has been kinda jumpy. like somtimes it stays at 13 then it will go down to about 10 for no reason. Even when im driving it. My alternator and battery are brand new. Then this morning when i started my car, the service engine light came on. So i took a paper clip and tried to get the codes out and nothing happened. I have extracted codes before easily. What the heck could be wrong?
Thank you

 

WAG, you have problem with the alternator and i'll bet it isn't brand new but rather a cheap rebuild from auto zone or a similar parts outlet

 

alright man,
actually my alternator is 2 months old and its brand spanken new. I did actually put some codes and they were 42 and 51. When i drove the car today no light came on until about 5 minutes. The engine light didnt come on solid, it kinda flashed and flashed for aobut 30 mins. Then when i finally got home and put it in drive, the light came on solid and thats when i pulled the codes. When the light was flashing, the rpms fluctuated a lil bit and it ran bad, loss of power. SO what could my problem be? thanx

 

oh my ***, can somebody please help?

 

There is undoubtedly a reason. It's likely you have problems with connections in one or more places. Start with the basics. Check the battery cables, engine grounds, power connections at the starter power terminal, ground connections at the rear of the right head and the firewall, The ground node on the inner fender, and fusible links.

There is also a power connector above the right rear head on the firewall. This connector is, to borrow a phrase from RB83L69, "...of extremely stupid design...", for lack of a better description. You should be able to find it here:

 

but what about the codes i got?
I mean my car has been acting really weird, the service light flashes non stop then all of a sudden it will come on solid

 

42 - EST Circuit Failure;

51 - ECM, PROM, or MEM-CAL failure;

Both of those could be the result of undervoltage at the ECM, causing input and internal TTL signals to be below recognition thresholds. This could cause the ECM to "mis-read" inputs and its own instructions, including the scan of the PROM for its contents.

Just verify at least 10.8VDC at the ECM while the engine is running. If you don't have that, you'll have problems. Your voltmeter is trying to tell you something, and is probably the only dash instrumewnt that is usually fairly accurate.

 

okay man,
today i bought an ignition module and i ordered a stock 350 chip
. where else do i start, how do i test the ECM voltage like u said.

 

okay, my buddy works at a shop so we hooked the car up to OBD 1 and it said no communication. When i tried to use a paper clip to get codes out , it wouldnt even flash, what the hell is wrong, where do i start man? i still have the module and chip to install