Hard starting and battery drain issues.

TsuedoSaleen302 · Apr 6, 2008

My pops is having issues with his 1995 GT. For some reason mainly during the winter/ when the temp drops a little ,if the car sits for over two days the battery dies like stone dead,we've replaced the battery twice with new ones, same issue. Now it's a little warmer out he's having hard start issues, so far we've changed out the following all new: Coil (twice), Coil condensor, Distributor, spark plugs, wires, Idle air valve, Maf sensor, Fuel pump, ICU I think it's called (little black box by the intake on the fenderwall), o2 sensors and its the same issue. We had the car scanned twice only thing showed up was the car running rich and thats when the o2's were changed out. The main problem is for some reason, somedays it would run good start right up and other days we have to jump the car and keep our fingers crossed. Any ideas or insight will be appreciated.

BTW Mods to car are: Mac cat-back, BBK Cold Air Intake, and MSD distributor.

HISSIN50 · Apr 6, 2008

Issues with cranking don't involve most of those parts. The battery, battery cables, motor grounds, starter and starter interlock circuit are the general items one looks at.

It sounds like you have a massive parasitic draw. You can put your DMM in series with the neg battery cable and terminal and check your current draw. If you find something, you will have to start disconnecting items till it goes away. Then you know that last-disconnected circuit has an issue.

On a huge draw like that, disconnect the alternator charge cable first. The alt is often responsible for such a big draw (it's a diode issue inside the alternator).

If you need more info on testing current draw, post up. You can use a cheap DMM to do this. I have a 5 dollar one that works well for this task.

Good luck.

TsuedoSaleen302 · Apr 7, 2008

Thats the catch though... It's not like the car is struggling to turn over. In most cases it cranks strong and nothing happens and when you say start disconnecting stuff as I go along with the DMM, your talking about pulling fuses for accessories?

HISSIN50 · Apr 7, 2008

I'm confused now. In the first post it sounded like the battery goes dead and needs a recharge after a couple of days of non-use. The mention of strong cranking in post 3 now has me confused.

Anyhow, for parasitic draw testing, you put the positive DMM lead into the appropriate port (most meters require you to repeg the lead into another port). Then disconnect the negative battery cable. Put the meter in series with the negative cable and negative battery post. Be sure all interior lights, underhood lights, etc are off. You also run the risk of blowing the fuse in your meter if the draw is huge (most meters have a nominal fusing/rating of 10 amp). Now note the draw. At that point, I disconnect the alternator charge cable and start pulling fuses one at a time till the reading drops (stop when it drops and note what circuit that was. You'll have to find the source of the short in that circuit). Dont forget to pull the underhood fuses, as most of those have battery power going through them.

Good luck.

TsuedoSaleen302 · Apr 7, 2008

HISSIN50 said:
I'm confused now. In the first post it sounded like the battery goes dead and needs a recharge after a couple of days of non-use. The mention of strong cranking in post 3 now has me confused.

Anyhow, for parasitic draw testing, you put the positive DMM lead into the appropriate port (most meters require you to repeg the lead into another port). Then disconnect the negative battery cable. Put the meter in series with the negative cable and negative battery post. Be sure all interior lights, underhood lights, etc are off. You also run the risk of blowing the fuse in your meter if the draw is huge (most meters have a nominal fusing/rating of 10 amp). Now note the draw. At that point, I disconnect the alternator charge cable and start pulling fuses one at a time till the reading drops (stop when it drops and note what circuit that was. You'll have to find the source of the short in that circuit). Dont forget to pull the underhood fuses, as most of those have battery power going through them.

Good luck.

Yea the parasitc draw is one issue and the hard starting with the strong cranking is another issue. This car just started actin up..out of no where. The dome lights don't stay on I checked that and the clock, it doesn't have a hood light because its good a cervini hood. Fog lights were removed when the saleen front bumper went on.

HISSIN50 · Apr 7, 2008

Check the trunk light and the glovebox light too. Then do the parasitic draw tests. Anything over 100 mA draw should cause concern. In your case, the draw should be much larger than that.

Good luck.

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