Alright guys the ZCCA Convention came to a close. During the closing banquet I left my headlights on. So I come out and my battery doesn't have enough charge. We go to jump the car and it won't start. We give it a moment then I crank it and as I quit cranking it like backfires and sorta almost starts. It was really odd. After a bit of messing with it, I don't know if I messed up my ECU with nistune. I hope not. We noticed some smoke coming from something. I popped in my spare 86' ECU. Then we got it to start up. Anyway I went to drive home, I go over a bump and my headunit goes out then comes right back on. First warning, but everything is going good. Car is running great, boosting fine, etc. Anyway nearly home and all of a sudden I can't get past 3500 RPM, it starts popping like it's running lean if I try. Then it won't go over 3000, now 2750, 2500, and so on. Til eventually I can't even rev the car. I slowly start coasting to the shoulder put on my hazards and everything goes dead. Nothing but the headlights work.

If I turn the ignition to ON I could hear the fuel pump, but the car doesn't have enough to crank. It'll start to crank, but then just you'll hear the solenoid clicking like it doesn't have enough power. I also smelled burning coming from under the hood and I could see smoke. I tested the battery with a voltmeter and I had like 11.6-7v. Luckily I was able to get some people to come from the hotel to give me a tow home. It's about 11:30pm when this all happened. So I'll start going over things in the morning. Until then any suggestions? Also is the EFI harness separate from the Ignition harness?

 

smoke not good, check the fuses, if you have a blowin one wait untill you find the short, odds are the short is your smoke. if there arent any then......have fun!

 

are the fusible links for the headlight and the ignition different? A good while ago I remember seeing the fusible link for the ignition looked like it had burnt up and the previous owner had spliced in a piece of speaker wire for the ignition fusible link. So I didn't like this as that wouldn't blow I just made a hard wire for the headlights and switched the headlight's fusible link over to the ignition so I'd have something that would blow just in case.

 

i know its not the easiest thing to change on the s130, but you might be looking at the voltage regulator or alternator. might also want to check the surrounding wires.

 

I've pulled the alternator a few times already, so I'm gonna pull that and the battery and go have them tested. Hopefully it's just something simple. I mean it is the original 25 year old 96k mile alternator.

 

Alternator tested fine, I was going through the Fusible links and none of them were blown. I was pulling them and checking resistance to make sure whether or not they were still conductive. I haven't found any burned wiring, although I wasn't able to get a good look at the wiring harness that runs up to the fusible link box. I'll pull the cruise control thing out when it's light out again to check, but the hardwired link I made for the headlights was barely connected. Pretty much what I had done was twisted a wire around the female connector and taped it together why I did this I have no idea. I've done things in the past that I have no understanding of why I've done them. Anyway I noticed the electrical tape was barely holding it together so I bet it was making a connection but causing it to arc and short? Would this be enough that if it keeps shorting over and over to freak out the whole electrical system?

Oh the other interesting thing to note. Is that when we were jumping the car from the hotel we noticed that it looked like there was smoke coming from the headlight connection. So that would probably go along with my horrible headlight connection in the fusible links. Also I disconnected the battery last night when we got the car back as was suggested in case I had something that could possibly keep arcing, you'd never know and it might catch fire. Anyway I connected the battery today and I had power again to everything.

 

the efi is seperate of everything, they do both have fuseable links in that little box, but are both fed by the wire fro mthe alternator na done goes to the battery. id give the battery a good charge, check the basic battery connections and start with that, when these things dont have 100% voltage and amps, they dont like to work. the head unit will stop kinda working at 10 volts, and will be the first to cut out. iv ehad so many electrical gremlins i know the whole car like the back of my hand. oh wait whats that spot?

 

I've basically come to the conclusion that it was more than likely related to my headlights. Like I said alternator tested out fine. I could be wrong, but seeing the smoke coming from the connector at the headlight when trying to jump the car then everything going dead like that. Then finding that one connection for the headlights in the fusible link box was barely a connection leads me to believe it had to be that. I just hope I haven't ruined my harness. Didn't notice any fuses burnt out. Anyway I went out there hoping I didn't ruin my ECU or anything and hooked it up. I connected the battery and again everything came on, interior lights, dash lights, headunit, etc. Everything worked. I went and then switched the ignition on fuel pump ran as it should. I then plugged in my ECU via USB to my laptop to make sure the Nistune board was still working and that all came up so that was a good sign. Checked for spark, had that. I just didn't try starting as I don't have enough charge on the battery anyway and I don't have the alternator in.

Hopefully I just got lucky and like I said didn't ruin my harness.

Oh and on the bright side I managed to snag the quick release connectors from a GM in the junkyard, so I can finish up splicing in my injector connectors, and replace my CHTS and Air Regulator connector.

 

Well, the Z is back up and running once again! I went through with it idling, took it for a drive around the block and made sure to get the RPMs up, gave it a couple of full throttle revs real quick just to make sure everything was alright. Let it idle went for a short drive. Turned all accessories on and let the car idle, didn't die out. Went through and started checking all the wires for any signs of wiring being hot. Everything felt good, although the one black fusible link for ACC? That did feel warmer than the rest. Although I'd assume that would have more power going through it do to the aftermarket headunit, speakers, and other wiring I've added to the accessories.