Emergency Electrical Diagnoses Please (Dr. House Style)
 

Problem = Car will not turn over

Symptoms = No power to cig lighter, no power to radio, can not connect to ecu thru ecuflash and the right turn signal stays illuminated

Background
I trunk mounted my battery a few weeks back, been driving the car, no problems. Had the car down for about 2 weeks doing misc installs, none power related.

2 days ago, started seeing battery light indicators when first starting the car, and then going away after the car warmed up. The Antilock light came on as well as all of the ACD lights earlier yesterday. Brought the car home, went to reset the battery and found my trunk mounted gel cel had basically exploded. Acid was all over the inner trunk lid. Bought a new battery this morning, installed, car started right up, no problem. Took the car up to the dyno so i could start the tune. Did a leak test, fixed those issues and took the car for a ride to see if the boost response was better. Noticed prior to leaving that the battery was starting to sweat a little bit. Didnt see any issues, did not find any shorts in the cable.

Did a few passes with the car, was on the way back to dial in the boost and all hell broke loose. We heard a loud pop... the car instantly died, the seat belts jerked us into the seats, and i had to pull the car off the road. Upon inspection, the fog light bulbs had exploded, the main fuse for the battery had melted into a big ball of plastic.

Towed the car back to the shop, replaced about 7 fuses under the hood and another 7 or 8 under the dash. Replaced all the fuses, ran a new wire to the trunk, reinstalled the battery and a new fuse and fuse holder. I'm not sure about the relays but we swapped some out with a totaled evo and no changes. Went thru with a test light and have power everywhere we are suppose to in the fuse areas.

I still have no power to the cig lighter, no power to the radio, cant connect to the ecu, turn signal stays on full time and the car cranks but does not turn over.

Any ideas...

I need some serious help. Thanks.

Sounds like a ground issue. Have you tried to tighten all grounds?

That i have not done...

I have checked the grounds under the hood though and in the trunk and they appear to be fine. I think the reason why the battery was having issues was a poor ground connection. I have replaced the terminals adapters with something that is getting a much better connection with the battery and i believe that is the main reason the battery was having issues. But because all of the fuses blew and the car wont crank, I can not see any results from that change.

What year? It sounds like electrical gremlins in the kick panel. That, or the alternator is way over charging.

06 SE

Alternator i just found out tonight is not stock, it has been replaced. I'm not sure of the specs, but i dont know if that would cause the system to blow. I wasn't having any problems with the car until the turbo kit went in the car, but nothing electrical was touched. Just the battery disconnected for 2 weeks. I did move the battery to the trunk pretty close to doing the turbo kit, so maybe there was a problem with that, but the car has been using this alternator for quite some time with no issues.

coulda fried some wires along the harness/fuse block area. or fuse block bad. have fun ohming alot of wires. that sucks. good luck. hope you find it and it's an easy fix. (but it won't be...)

I'm not so much concerned with solving the reason the battery is having problems, i think i solved that. I'm trying to figure out why the car isn't starting, why i have no power to the center portion of my dash and why i cant connect to the ecu and why the damn right turn signal is on.

If i can solve those power issues, i think that will fix everything else for right now.

bump for some help

anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to attack this ?

daaaaam ric, sorry to hear that man, hope u get her figured out.

here is my guess based on what u wrote below; u probably ran 2much power thru the lines and cuzed some internal "melting" thru the wires themselves and not just the fuses (possibly why ur signal is always on, the wires have conected). I would check the signal wire as a start to see if such a thing has occured. hope u get her figured out quick!

Maybe drop the fuse block and see the condition of the wires behind it. When my Ghia wiring harness fried it actually melted the insulation of a few wires inside the largest bundle in the car, fusing them all together in a big melted mass of plastic and copper. I hope that isn't your issue.

Josh
:usflag:

^thats what i was reffering to. lets hope not tho!

Thats kind of what i am dreading lol. I have been thrwoing ideas out on how hard would it be to pull out the inside harness all together and swap that with the other one. Just trying to get an idea of how much of the dash will need to be removed. With my luck... all of it :lol:

ill be back tomorrow...

Look at the wiring connectors under the driver's side kick panel.