Intermittent shutting down:Seems like electrical, Knock gauge contiuous reset???

[turbo96max]

Ok, so need some help, I have always driven the car without any issues. Yesterday the car started acting up. It started by just dying on me like it did when the fuseable link went out, but only it actually cranked right up again and it was kinda missing and then cleared up. it did it a few times then it drove for another 15-20 minutes without any issues. During the shutoff, the ecm would loose power bc the TT chip settings would return back to original setting 128 accross the board.

Im thinking, cant be maf or any sensors bc then that wouldnt explain why the ecm would loose its settings,

today, it drove fine for about 45 minutes, and then it started wanting to die on me, almost like inbtwn life and death, and i notices the voltage on the scanmaster drop to 5/6 volts when the car would start dying and then it would clean up as it saw 12.5 volts again, anyone got any idea what wire/wires i should be inspecting??

1. can a bad ground do this or a hot ground cable, i have my ground hooked up to the header bolt rather than the head bolt(i have driven the car like this for over 6 months without any issues, but i mention it as maybe the ground wire maybe finally got toasted from the heat???but why intermittent??)

2. does this sound like a bad alternator? maybe one going in and out??(but then the battery should be dead for the ecu to loose its settings, and it cranks right up or tries to crank right away, meaning the batteru has enough charge to turn the starter??)

3.no mal codes

4.i noticed the knock gauge is continously going from green to red when i drive the car (other than idling) which i never noticed before, like it flashes when you first start the car during its reset

5. couls this be an ecu issue, the car has the modded ecu for low res injectors???


any help would be great guys, should i replace the fuseable link again? alternator? what wires lead to the ecu besides the one orange that can be rubbing somewhere? etc

 

[bison]

Ok, so need some help, I have always driven the car without any issues. Yesterday the car started acting up. It started by just dying on me like it did when the fuseable link went out, but only it actually cranked right up again and it was kinda missing and then cleared up. it did it a few times then it drove for another 15-20 minutes without any issues. During the shutoff, the ecm would loose power bc the TT chip settings would return back to original setting 128 accross the board.

Im thinking, cant be maf or any sensors bc then that wouldnt explain why the ecm would loose its settings,

today, it drove fine for about 45 minutes, and then it started wanting to die on me, almost like inbtwn life and death, and i notices the voltage on the scanmaster drop to 5/6 volts when the car would start dying and then it would clean up as it saw 12.5 volts again, anyone got any idea what wire/wires i should be inspecting??

1. can a bad ground do this or a hot ground cable, i have my ground hooked up to the header bolt rather than the head bolt(i have driven the car like this for over 6 months without any issues, but i mention it as maybe the ground wire maybe finally got toasted from the heat???but why intermittent??)

2. does this sound like a bad alternator? maybe one going in and out??(but then the battery should be dead for the ecu to loose its settings, and it cranks right up or tries to crank right away, meaning the batteru has enough charge to turn the starter??)

3.no mal codes

4.i noticed the knock gauge is continously going from green to red when i drive the car (other than idling) which i never noticed before, like it flashes when you first start the car during its reset

5. couls this be an ecu issue, the car has the modded ecu for low res injectors???


any help would be great guys, should i replace the fuseable link again? alternator? what wires lead to the ecu besides the one orange that can be rubbing somewhere? etc

Id look at the orange wire more closely and the ecm connector and pins. You can actually run your own wire and de-pin and remove the factory orange wire to see if you can eliminate the problem. Do you see any dimming of the lights when this occurs?

 

[turbo96max]

no dimming, its more like an abrubt disconnect or almost like someone was manually connecting two wires and haveing like a false contact, but i def would say the car usually is around 11.9- 12.5 volts on the scanmaster, never really seen 13s, you thinking dimming lights would mean alternator issues?

are my assumptions about the battery and ground be accurate, meaning that if it was alternator not charging and battery dyinng, then the car would slowly dim and die , and not really crank up anymore?

is the orange wire going into the ecu fused? is it orange all the way into the ecu?

 

[bison]

no dimming, its more like an abrubt disconnect or almost like someone was manually connecting two wires and haveing like a false contact, but i def would say the car usually is around 11.9- 12.5 volts on the scanmaster, never really seen 13s, you thinking dimming lights would mean alternator issues?

are my assumptions about the battery and ground be accurate, meaning that if it was alternator not charging and battery dyinng, then the car would slowly dim and die , and not really crank up anymore?

is the orange wire going into the ecu fused? is it orange all the way into the ecu?

If it was the alternaotr voltage would drop everywhere not just the ecm. The battery is not needed once the alternator has reached enough speed to produce 12+v. The orange wire is fuseable at the battery connector and is often corroded or paritally broken where the factory butt connected it to the hard orange wire. Ive had intermittent open circuit on it myself and had the symptoms you described. It was corroded and about 1 or 2 strands were holding. The rest had failed. Cutting the factory butt connector out and soldering together and shrink wrapping over the wires fixed it.

 

[3.8L V-8 eater]

Sounds like it could possibly be one of the battery cables coming into contact with the passenger side header... Had a similiar problem years ago on my 86' GN. One of the clips popped open and allowed the wires to come up far enough to contact the header. The harder I got on the throttle the more the motor torqued towards the wires... It would either kill the car or just shut everything down for a split second and come back to life... Can't remember which but a right or left turn would effect it as well.

 

[turbo96max]

Bison,

I will run a new wire to the ecm this weekend, ill updat the thread with results.

V 8 Eater,

I will also check to make sure that the wires are not rubbing on the header. makes sense also,

I also noticed that my light bulb on the dash for the battery doesnt light up, so im going to order the fix from caspers, but i dont think this is causing the problem as the car does seem to charge, but the battery does die after a week or so of the car not driving