As some of you know, I have been having a lot of problems with my car lately. It all started when I came back from South Carolina. When I went to drive the car after it had been sitting for a week, it started right up. But when I drove it a bit, it randomly skipped. It felt like the fuel just STOPPED completely for a minute and then it kicked backed in.

I know if it actually had, it would be more of a sputter than a complete dead stop of the car because there would be small amounts of gas still in the cylinders.

i changed out the fuel filter as well as the fuel line just to see if it helped. Nothing.

I had just changed all the coil packs/wires/plugs in march so I highly doubt those have already gone. Today I was driving and I went to slow down and turn and all of a sudden my radio turned off and ALL of my dash lights came on flashing. I stopped, turned the car off and turned it back on. It ran fine after that.

Every so often it will just randomly stall. Once it even stalled while I was driving. Most of the time if it DOES stall, it stalls when I'm just idling either at a stop sign or wherever.

Now I'm thinking it has to be some sort of a sensor. But I know nothing about the possible sensors that could be wrong. What are some possibilities and how can I test to see if it's them, rather than buying a bunch of them and seeing what happens.

question 1

any CELs?

negative. but I'm going to borrow my uncles scanner wednesday. it is very possible my bulb is no good because it does not come on when i start the car like it should.

yea that bulb should light up when you put the key to ACC lol. Find out the codes, if any, and go from there.


Part of me also suspects possible alternator..

i thought alternator as well. had it tested today and it was fine...

You would notice a charging issue on the gauge if it was that. You really need to get the SES light to light up first. I may have missed it but which ride is this again?

yea it would help if i told ya what car huh haha...it's the 96 firebird. the more i think about it, the more the alternator is seeming to be the problem. With my system running off the stock alternator that is about 13 years old now, it's probably draining the alternator of it's power.

The battery gauge does fluctuate quite a bit. When i first start my car, it's a lot higher than it is when I am done driving usually. at least 2 or 3 volts lower than when it started. But I will be running the OBDII scanner on wednesday to see if anything pops up.

you guys and your fancy voltage gauges

hmm but you said you had the alt tested?
I'd get a second opinion, cause thats my first thought as well.

Or what about a loose wire? Seems pretty simple. If your alt tests good but have a bad wire you might see the same effects. Just a thought.

this is drew. i think it could be a loose wire/ ground as well.

so for an update. i was driving to work today and POOF! car dies. (just like that too...POOF!). so i'm on the sideof the road and a cop comes. pushes me out of the middle of the street (nice of him). Car doesn't even turn over. nothing. completely dead. A good samaritan is driving by and stops and offers to help the cop push in a better place. just for shits and giggles we try jumping it. it starts no problem. the second the jumper cables come off the car, it dies again. So this time, we let it run for a bit. revving the engine to charge the battery etc. about 10 minutes later, we take it off the cables. DEATH.

This time, I get inthe car while it's on, rev it up to about 2500 while he disconnects the cables, figuring the already moving at a high RPM alternator will keep it charged enough just to get me home (i was only about 3 minutes from my house). Once again, FAIL. At this point i'm just pissed off.

but the good news...it was indeed the "good" alternator that failed me. The battery was completely dead because it was giving the car all the power it could (obviously not enough to get me to lakeville for work) so it died. So tomorrow I will get my car running again, hopefully with no more friggin issues. Thanks for everyones help. HIGH OUTPUT ALTERNATOR FTW!

I was just going to post saying the alternator is junk. Just from reading that your volt meter goes down when driving was a indication. The reason it could have tested good while at the store is because the store only tests to see what the voltage is, they dont have a way of load testing the alternator like if it were in a car. My alternator tests fine on every test stand its been on but when its on the car even with the belt loose the bearings on the inside heat up so much the it melted my belt once. You just cant test stff like that in the store.

Glad you got it fixed. You dont have those cheesy underdrive pulleys on that car do you?

I'm not really sure what you're referring to, so I'm going to go with no.

some people install "underdrive pulleys" on their engine to gain a few HP. A smaller crank pulley and a smaller alt pulley are put on and in theory it produces a few more HP. The problem is is that the larger diameter alt pulley causes the alt to live a short life and having a high wattage system in your car makes it even worse. Thats why I asked if you had pulleys on your car.

I wonder if they even have underdrive pulleys for LS series engines? Im gonna go research

ohhhhhh ok. no i do not have that. thanks for clarifying tho

They do have them for the LSx engines Brad but Randys car is a V6.

The same thing happened to my uncle with the jumper cabless. When he got the new alternator the pully was bigger on the new one so our guess was that the old one wasn't turning fast enough causing it to work harder.

the car runs PERFECTLY. it was a lot of little shit. You guys were right. bad grounds everywhere, battery terminal was pretty loose, and of course the alternator. It hasn't run this good in quite some time.