Starting to think my car hates me.

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Craig Burriss

Craig Burriss

FABO Gold Member
FABO Gold Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2017
Messages
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Location
Statesboro Georgia
Over the 4 years I’ve had my Duster, I’ve had it really close to being a good daily driver multiple times. But it seems every time I finish that “last project” to get it just right, the car says “haha you’re not driving me anywhere!”.
I just finished up the installation of my Holley Sniper system and it’s running amazingly. I have 0 complaints with the Sniper system.
My sister that I only see a few times a year is flying in next week and I was planning on picking her up at the airport about an hour away in my Duster because every time she’s seen the car, it’s been torn apart in the middle of some project. Well I was just about to pull out of the driveway to go get some food and I looked down and my voltage was sitting at 11.5 volts. This is the THIRD time this has happened with my Powermaster one wire alternator. They’ve always fixed it and sent it back free of charge even though it’s out of warranty. But I think I’ve had enough of it and will probably throw it in the woods tomorrow morning.

I hope y’all’s cars play nicer than mine does.
A4FE6829-DDD7-42AD-BD3F-213C2F261258.jpeg
 
you could always pull a Trailbeast and whip it out , take a leak on it and
send the video to power master LOL!
are you sure the car isn't killing them ?
 
Bulldozer said:
you could always pull a Trailbeast and whip it out , take a leak on it and
send the video to power master LOL!
are you sure the car isn't killing them ?
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Lol I haven’t heard about that one.
I’m not sure how the car could be killing them, it only has one wire, which is safely routed directly to the battery terminal on the starter relay.
 
Craig Burriss said:
Over the 4 years I’ve had my Duster, I’ve had it really close to being a good daily driver multiple times. But it seems every time I finish that “last project” to get it just right, the car says “haha you’re not driving me anywhere!”.
I just finished up the installation of my Holley Sniper system and it’s running amazingly. I have 0 complaints with the Sniper system.
My sister that I only see a few times a year is flying in next week and I was planning on picking her up at the airport about an hour away in my Duster because every time she’s seen the car, it’s been torn apart in the middle of some project. Well I was just about to pull out of the driveway to go get some food and I looked down and my voltage was sitting at 11.5 volts. This is the THIRD time this has happened with my Powermaster one wire alternator. They’ve always fixed it and sent it back free of charge even though it’s out of warranty. But I think I’ve had enough of it and will probably throw it in the woods tomorrow morning.

I hope y’all’s cars play nicer than mine does.
View attachment 1715541763
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It does hate you. Dump it. Next time I'm heading to Swainsboro hunting, I'll stop
and haul it off for free! :poke::D
 
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Well you are a lot closer than I am, keep that in mind.
 
Well, my wife hates my car... Ill tell you that. Sounds like the internal voltage regulator is bad. They have a model called the XS that is adjustable. Does it have a good ground? Maybe run a cable from the bracket bolt to the NEG side and see if the voltage changes? Maybe you got a dirty ground though the bracket.
 
I’m just going to go to oreillys tomorrow morning and grab a cheapy 60 amp externally regulated alt and throw it on. Just so I can drive the car. And surprise my sister. Haha
 
Well I bought and installed the cheap parts store alternator and regulator. It worked fine yesterday. But today... it started acting up.
On the 60 mile drive to the Savannah airport, my voltage started bouncing all over the place. Anywhere between 12.8 and 16.1 volts! I stopped at another oreillys and exchanged my voltage regulator to see if that would help. It didn’t, but I was already almost to the airport, so I kept going. I picked my sister up and about halfway back we ran into some really slow moving, stop and go traffic. If you’ve seen my other posts you’ll know my car has cooling issues in traffic. The temps got up to higher than ever before... 240°. After that I said screw it and drove down the shoulder and “safely” ran a red light just so I could cool it down some. About 3 miles later the AFR gauge went dead lean and the car shut off. When I went to try to start it back, I didn’t hear the fuel pump kick on like I normally do. I checked all of the connections to the major components of the Sniper EFI and everything looked good. I let the car sit for about 5 minutes and then it started back and was running as good as always. Got back out on the road and almost made it home. About 50 feet away from my driveway it shut off again. Luckily I was able to just roll into my driveway.
I’m not sure if the super intense engine temperature affected the ecu causing the fuel pump to shut down or if the constant pulsing of voltage hurt the pump.
When it first happened I touched the fuel pump and it was not hot at all, but when I would turn the key on, I could hear it was almost struggling to get going.
I’m leaning towards the voltage spikes causing it because when the voltage would go up, I could hear the sound of the fuel pump increase in pitch. It almost sounded like a broken siren sounding like “VVVVvvvvvVVVVvvvvVVVV”. The Sniper system can operate on a 16v system so I don’t think it was over powered.
I’m just glad we made it home.
 
Check your firewall bulkhead connectors. I bet the gremlins are there. Pull them off, clean and reattach with dielectric grease on the connectors. Repair/clean any that look funky.
 
Glad you made it home. And nah, you're not the only one who thinks their cars hate them lol. Can't tell you how many times I've been, "just this one last thing, and it's all good!" and a nasty gremlin throws you for a loop all over again.
 
Craig Burriss said:
Well I bought and installed the cheap parts store alternator and regulator. It worked fine yesterday. But today... it started acting up.
On the 60 mile drive to the Savannah airport, my voltage started bouncing all over the place. Anywhere between 12.8 and 16.1 volts! I stopped at another oreillys and exchanged my voltage regulator to see if that would help. It didn’t, but I was already almost to the airport, so I kept going. I picked my sister up and about halfway back we ran into some really slow moving, stop and go traffic. If you’ve seen my other posts you’ll know my car has cooling issues in traffic. The temps got up to higher than ever before... 240°. After that I said screw it and drove down the shoulder and “safely” ran a red light just so I could cool it down some. About 3 miles later the AFR gauge went dead lean and the car shut off. When I went to try to start it back, I didn’t hear the fuel pump kick on like I normally do. I checked all of the connections to the major components of the Sniper EFI and everything looked good. I let the car sit for about 5 minutes and then it started back and was running as good as always. Got back out on the road and almost made it home. About 50 feet away from my driveway it shut off again. Luckily I was able to just roll into my driveway.
I’m not sure if the super intense engine temperature affected the ecu causing the fuel pump to shut down or if the constant pulsing of voltage hurt the pump.
When it first happened I touched the fuel pump and it was not hot at all, but when I would turn the key on, I could hear it was almost struggling to get going.
I’m leaning towards the voltage spikes causing it because when the voltage would go up, I could hear the sound of the fuel pump increase in pitch. It almost sounded like a broken siren sounding like “VVVVvvvvvVVVVvvvvVVVV”. The Sniper system can operate on a 16v system so I don’t think it was over powered.
I’m just glad we made it home.
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Craig are you running the sniper external pump ? If you are good chance it’s on it’s way out. They aren’t that great and heard many stories I’ve them failing Where do you have the pump mounted as they need to sit below the tank . If you have them mounted half way or just below and you have plenty of fuel in the car they will run dry and they will fail.Afr lean spiked possible due to fuel starvation as that system needs 60psi. Another possibility with the lean spike is your sensor could be going bad but I’m more incline that it’s the pump.
 
missing linc said:
Bettin that your sister was totally impressed.

:poke:
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She said it was a fun adventure. Haha


67 gt said:
Craig are you running the sniper external pump ? If you are good chance it’s on it’s way out. They aren’t that great and heard many stories I’ve them failing Where do you have the pump mounted as they need to sit below the tank . If you have them mounted half way or just below and you have plenty of fuel in the car they will run dry and they will fail.Afr lean spiked possible due to fuel starvation as that system needs 60psi. Another possibility with the lean spike is your sensor could be going bad but I’m more incline that it’s the pump.
Click to expand...

Yes it’s the external pump, I have it mounted on the bottom of the fuel tank right below the sending unit. It’s literally mounted exactly how the instructions said were “ideal”.
 
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