This is the second TPI setup I have owned and when I turn on the lights the car dies, even when I am driving. It will stumble and surge and then shut off. I get good Alternator voltage.

Since this is the second wiring harness that does this. Obviously something in the body is making it happen. what I do not understand is what could possibly make the car do what it is doing? I am going to disconnect all of my aftermarket gauges and see if that helps. Incase my wiring to the light system is mingling with the ignition sources from the gauges.


any ideas?

 

What is your voltage at the battery. You need 14.00 to 14.5 to properly run everything.

jms

 

Car runs decent during the day....
If you turn on the lights or the AC while you drive it will stumble like it is running on 2 cylinders.

Obviously it is a load problem... When I put a big load on the car wants to die. So with this said... how do we solve this matter?

I need it to drive 9 hours away in a few days so please give me any info you may have.


Also... when i hit the brakes really hard the car dies, and I have to restart the car every stop... it sucks..

The voltage seems normal on the gauges.

 

Maybe a huge vacuum leak or really low voltage / bad battery..
Check every connection and check your battery..

 

Brand new optima battery.

As far as a vacuum leak, this is the second setup I used that did this. So something must be up. I wonder if I need more grounding wires for the electrical system or something.

If it were a vacuum leak it would stumble regardless if the lights would be on or the ac would be on you would think?

 

Old cars (like these) can get problems just from age.

DO NOT TRUST THE FACTORY GAUGES. If you don't have the tools to check the actual voltage from the alternator, find someone that does.

A nice multi-meter guage from AutoZone or a similar parts store is MANDATORY when working on these cars. And not that expensive. You will use it on many other parts of your car.

It still sounds to me like an alternator problem is there but may not be the only problem.

When you changed the harness, did you make sure to bolt the grounds onto the back of the passenger side head?

Don't spend another penny until you get the alternator "professionally" tested.

jms

 

I will pop off the alternator tonight and get it tested at AZ. I have a multimeter and I was getting 14 volts. So, yes I have the proper tools.

Also, I did NOT bolt the grounds to the back of the head. I bolted the grounds to the firewall. I noticed there are two ground wires that have been cut off. a Tan looking one and a black and white stripe one.

I will extend those and ground them, and move the grounding straps to the back of the heads.
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Any idea why the car would die each time a brake to a complete stop? I thought maybe my idea was set too low so I adjusted it to 900-1000 and it still dies each time I give it a hard braking or brake to a complete stop.

 

I forgot where those tan and black wires go

maybe the egr purge????

those grounds need to be connected to the motor or gm would have put them on the firewall

put a nice heathy ground strap from the motor to the frame

start the motor and have someone push on the brakes your master cylinder or the hose that goes to the upper plenuem is leaking

 

Turns out it was the grounds. I put on 2 additional grounding straps and moved the other grounds to the back of the heads. Everything sorta peachy.

My car still dies when you stop... I think my runners are warped.
What is the cheapest aftermarket runner?