i guess i was right?

 

It is your alternator.

it might "seem" that it charges fine, but its not.

Especially when you have a race battery, and all kinds of other stuff, it puts a lot of extra stress on your alternator.

 

Do you have another alternator to try.
It is starting to sound like its the problem.

 

I will have another alternator in a few days maybe the end of the week

im going to try a different battery just jumped over and see if that changes the crazy over voltage from the cigarette lighter and see if the car starts.

Theoretically after i start the car, i should be able to run the car ( no electronics or assists ) on just the alternator to really test it correct?

 

Yes.
You can also disconnect the alternator and run on just the battery too... just not very far.
I've heard 20-30 miles, but its probably less with our car since we have EPS
Never tried it myself to see how far the battery alone can take me.
But its another way to test it out.

 

banshee*

 

battery i would just take to advance or something and test.. whatever

alternator is the hard one to truly test.

You can check the voltage at the alternator , sure, and it may be charging like someone said and my car will still run.

BUT i guess if the voltage regulator is going bad and may be intermittent, then that would slowly change the charging life either + or - voltage, and may even be overcharging my battery, or in case of the cigarette lighter putting out too many volts.

I am gonna try another battery alone tomorrow, start the car and let the alternator run the car and see how long that works, then try swapping alternators, then who knows

 

I didn't mean to test the battery, but let the car run/drive on ONLY the battery.
If the car runs perfectly fine on just the battery (alternator disconnected) then you know for sure that the alternator is bad.

 

battery is dead now though, so gonna switch it first is all. i wanna test the car running on alternator alone to rule out my race battery being bad

 

Ahh... well good luck to you and keep us posted.

 

thanks for all the help, as much as i hope its an alternator, i kinda hope not because this one is nice and powdercoated :P

SN850403.jpg?t=1247462858

 

Had a car that did something similar once..it turned out it was the ignition switch......

 

In a way I hope not.... I would feel like such a tool.
I started suspecting the ignition switch when he mentioned he couldn't start the car.
That's why I wanted him to check the starter solenoid (which gets its current from the ignition switch).
I didn't want to jump to that without verifying first.

Oh well... gives him a couple suggestions to try out.

 

Ok so i got a jumppack charger, started the car, took a video. Voltage was at 14.1-14.2 while running.

waited 5 minutes. disconnected the battery and let the alternator run the car. Voltage was 14.1-14.3

everything ran fine and like it was supposed to. no problems. THIS is the issue... there seems to be no direct part failure, just some weird *** intermittent failure in the electrical system. its really pissing me off.. anyone else have an idea? need me to post videos?

 

Has to be a bad contact somewhere ......

 

Okay I didn't read everything but I had a similar issue a couple years ago that lingered for a while but basically my alternator would overcharge at times and my symptoms were almost exactly the same and intermittent but it ended up costing me two batteries, alternator, and an ABS unit. I could have saved a ton of money but a shitty dealer told me it was the battery and the positive terminal but on the drive home the damage was done.

I didn't figure it out until I removed the alternator and had it bench tested at an alternator re builder and it was overcharging at times and then eventually it got worse and worse. I had that alternator rebuilt twice and but basically the alternator was damaged somehow where the rebuilds would fix it for a while but they would fail in about a year. Finally I got a great deal on a factory alternator and things have been good every since then (except the engine replacement )

But the moral of my story is that the dealer and the Autozone machines all said my alternator and battery were good when in fact the battery was ruined by the overcharging and the alternator was junk so I would get it bench tested to truly eliminate it. Do you have any way of seeing voltage as your driving? I knew I had bigger issues even when they told me it was the battery because in that day when I replaced teh battery with a new one I was getting fluctuating voltage on my Scanguage II.

 

With the voltage spike to the cig lighter it sounds like a hard short to the frame. Try putting the battery in the engine bay and removing the relocation kit yet Patrick and eliminating that? Other then that start looking at hard drawing circuits for a short.

 

lol i dont know why you all think my battery is in the trunk.. funny.

look hard

i have other alternators and odyssey warranty on the battery, im not worried about that, but if there is a short somewhere thats gonna keep causing this problem, then yes im worried. It just makes no sense why its so random and i can let it sit then it works fine.

Btw no fuses are popped anywhere so if its a short, its not enough to blow a fuse, but enough to shut down my car? wtf?

 

I would start wiggling the harnesses and plugs behind the dash...ignition area first and see if anything turns up. It is much more likely to be a poor connection than a short......shorts blow fuses..intermittent connections cause flashing lights

 

Intermittent connections don't discharge batteries. Im thinking of a short closer to the battery...something between the battery and fuse box.

 

Shorts cause sparks and heat Especially between the battery and fusebox.

Patrick...is this car had a bunch of re-wiring done to it? New harnesses or anything?

 

showoff

 

only RE wiring ive done is to relocate the battery, but if that wasnt done correctly it wouldnt have worked in the first place, much less ive had that battery in for over 6 months.. why now ? and why is it magically fixed again..?

i guess there is no way to tell what the issue is. The only REAL issue i have is that the power steering acts up when i first start the car unless i turn the wheel when i crank it.

 

I would doubt it was the battery relocate....if something that big was shorting out you would have noticed right away

Power Steering issue sounds really strange??

Still think you should wiggle things arounds

 

The "whine" you mentioned (assuming it gets real bad with A.M. radio) is a sign of a bad diode/triode in the alternator. When they go bad they allow A.C. voltage spikes to hammer the battery rather than send it the D.C. it needs (via truncating the AC current, making it DC). You still want to make sure you have no shorts on the positive side of your battery (as Olddragger suggested) and be sure all your grounds are clean and secure, too.

The "popping" you hear from the radio (assuming a factory system) are the amps turning on and off as they are always idling whether or not the radio is actually on.