Electrical fun continued...

OK, electrical guys/gals, I could use some insight. Brand new batteries drain withing 3-6 days. I've swapped the alternator, alternator belt, battery, rewired the starter to fix the click click start problem. I dont know if this is related or not, but even with the relay in there, sometimes I still have the click click start problem...and my batteries are still draining after 3 days. The voltage meter on my turbo timer reads usually in teh 13V range while I'm driving...occasionally hitting 14, sometimes dipping into the 12s. Back in the day I remember it always being at 14.5

I put a multimeter in line with the negative battery cable and pulled fuses and had my boy watch to see any changes, he said he saw none, and I went through every fuse in both fusible links, and a couple stray fuses for the amp.

I think I fried the ETACS or my door lock actuator awhile back, because every so often, the door locks will just keep locking themselves, so I'm wonderin if every so often this is what is draining the battery overnight...but that doesn't happen while I'm driving, and the voltage still reads low then, so I don't think that's the main problem.

Also was suspecting the battery cables, but I tightened them up and they look good, havn't replaced them but probably will sooner or later.

Any thoughts?

How many amps of draw are you getting with your car off?

Thats about what i get from my turbo timer too...only dipping in the 12s for a split second when i turn everything on all at once.
for the draining problem, you must have a short somewhere. My amp used to kill my battery in about a week. never figured out why, but i took it out and it stopped. I eventually just hooked up an inline switch and turned it off whenever i parked it.

first thing i would do is go check the alternator or the whole system... becausei had a similar problem, my alternator went out so i replaced it, it worked fine but my dash light would dim when i would come to a complete stop... so then i went to go get the altenator checked and they said it was working but it wasn't putting out enough voltage, so then i changed the alternator again and problem solved,my lights didn't dim anymore but i also did notice that my battery gauge used to always read 13.5 volts with the factory alternator, now it jumps around all the time but never goes below 12v so i have come to living with it, so short story long i am saying even though you just put a new alternator, it could be bad... also i do believe your doors locking will eventually drain the battery and the reason it stops locking when your driving is because the ignition switch is positioned to on, when it's positioned off, thats when it attempts to lock

Well sounds like you have an un-fused drain. (pulling the fuses during the draw test won't locate it)

I know from experience that the doors locking themselves will kill the battery. My firebird would continually unlock itself when it rained, battery would be dead by morning. Different situation than a bad ETACS but same idea.

If you're voltage is dropping into the 12's thats a sign the alternator isn't doing its job, or the battery is preventing it from doing so. Or there's a bad connection inbetween the two. But it shouldn't kill the battery if it's only occasional.

Have you read the voltage with a voltmeter at idle?

If the alt was bad then it would contantly be reading 12V or lower. Being its reading 13V most of the time I am going to say theres a dead short somewhere.

Being NA I have a factory voltmeter. I will watch it and at times it will drop below 13V and other times be reading right below 14V. My alt is fine and my battery is fine.

If its taking a few days then I am going to say its something that goes on when the car is sitting, not charging. Otherwise it would die daily.

Igo, remind me, what did you do to fix that problem you had waaaay back? was it some short in the fuel injection harness?

you have a 96. i know a local Dallas guy who's 96 vr4 had some electrical problems, but his were ignition related. though he didn't have any battery problems, i think its valid to say that 96s have wiring issues. his problem was traced to a short in the wire for one of the coil packs (this wire branches off the main harness to the passenger strut area where you can ground it and adjust the ignition timing).

anywho, my friend Gray Haze, a technical wizard, solved the problem by wire tracing. you might send him a PM on 3Si and see if he could help or at least point you in the right direction.

hey yea..didnt you have a wire that was acting as both power ang ground, shorting itself out of something?

Yeah, that was a freaking blast. That's all since been fixed. Gonna work on it more tonight, if I can muster the motivation. I have a few suspicions I want to test out.