OK heres the deal. I have a 90 180sx with the CA18DET. Prior to friday my car ran great. i had just gotten new plugs and a tune done on it by a very repoutable shop(bout 2 weeks prior). friday i blew both rad hoses. so i brought it home and replaced every heater hose on my car to prevent more from blowing. thats that so i put eveything back together. i double checked what i did and i didnt for get anything. filled it up and drove off. it ran great all day saturday then last night i noticed that while having head lights, steroe with amp and sub, heater and rear defroster on it dropped idle at lights. so i shut off the rear defroster and the heater and it was fine. now to day all day its been jumping idle from 500 to 1000 rpm all day. especially when im on the brakes and idling at lights. while doing the rad hoses i did spill coolant on the alternator quite a bit.
SO my question here is . would this be my alternator /and/or my battery that is pooched??? keeping in mind i still have the camera battery (JDM battery) in the car.
o and i almost forgot. ive noticed to that the little bell that goes off when im at 110km has gotten weaker since i bought the car (got it about a month ago)
im going to go over it again tomorow but i thought a little help and opinions would benifit more then ne thing, thanks for any help
yea not having the foot on the brake helps but the idle just plainly sucks. its almost to the point of stalling and its jumping sounds like a broken record. if it is the alternator what fits??? and if i do change the battery do i need a new tray as mine is for a small jdm one??? i know ill need new connectors as they are smaller. im gonna bring it in tomorow to test the battery . any other thoughts???
just thinking here. would a faulty altrenator be cause for an irattic idle? its it just cause its working so hard or is there somehting more im not seeing ?? also what alternator fits in the CA if it be it. ???
Well what is the voltage when your car is idling? If you dont have a gauge on your dash. Grab a multi meter and put it on your battery while the car is running. If it reads like 12 or worse, then maybe it is your alt.
Ok so i went and got a multimeter today and tested it out. the alternator is at 13.7 and the battery is only putting out 224CCA. thats understandable seeing as its the JDM sized battery. now heres my question.
I kno the Battery tray is designed ti fit the small ones. do i need to get one out of a 240 in order to have a proper tie down for a normal sized battery or should i just make my own tie down ??? Or does anyone have a JDM sized battery thats working good???
240ssx- I put a Optima Red top in my old Silvia and it fit no problem, you will have to fab up battery tie downs. Or i have heard of people using motorcyle batteries (probably not Canadian winter friendly idea though)
HAHA ^^^^ Exactaly what i did. fits nice. looks good and solved the problem 100%. Im going to make some new tie downs tonight and ill be laughing. For the summer once i get a winter beater and this is my summer ride ill buy an oddessy battery as i like the compact size and look. thanks for all thoughts and ideas. greatly appreciated.
Well so much for that solving my problem. about half an hour later the problem came back. this leads me to beleive that it is the alternator. only qhiuestion is. would a faulty alternator cause for power loss and crappy boosting. usually it hauls ass but now its very laggy and not as get up and go as it used to be. so if this be the alternator what cars alternators fit into the CA. would like a early 90’s pulsar one work ???
If you need an alternator i highly suggest trying to get it rebuilt first. You can make a KAE one work but it does require some modifications ( so i am told, ive never seen nor heard first hand of someone doing this)
OK so today i had it in the shop. they assured me it wasnt the alternator. they said it was the idle air control valve so they cleaned it out. i picked it up and nothing changed. its only dropping idle when im on the brakes and espescially when the lights are on and im on the brakes. this never did this before and its getting real annoying and it sucks. almost stalls out. could it be because my brakes are very low and almost gone? (im planning to do them this weekend. i had to wait for all the parts to come in) im stumped here and would really like my car back running strong.???
my ca drops from 1000rpm idle to around 700rpm sometimes when i step on the brakes with the lights and the stereo on. New brakes wont make any differnece I dont think. Is it still hunting and stalling? What do ure MAF elements look like. mine were caked with shit, cleaned it with electrical contact cleaner and all was well when i was having simular problems. Keep us posted.
come to think of it. when i was doing my rad hoses i had to take off the huge tube from the intake and it was very oily. time didnt permit me to clean the entire intake out but i have noticed it has been spewing oil from the valve covers into the intake track. i will deffinetly check tom0orow and clean it out either way. thanks for the tip. i totally for got about that.
Me 2. thanks again. that made the light buld in my head go “BING” haha and that doesnt happen offten. ill post what happens tomorow and ill go pick up some electrical contact cleaner and ill clean out the intake. now for the intake getting oil from the valve covers would a catch tank be a wise investment or are they useless???