aside from my car burning tons of oil it seems that she's developed an electrical problem.

Stuff thats happened:

1) every once in a while when i start my car the radio will lose all power (clock gets reset, sound settings, radio stations are lost) its very brief, the face will just flicker once.

2) today, i started my car and everything lit up EXCEPT the lights behind the speedo and tach. the needles lit up but the actual guages did not. i shut the car off, and restarted her and she was normal...

3) this one i MAY be imagining: i gain power when my stereo is OFF... lol. my stereo isnt anything huge. 720W amp running components in the front and 3ways in the back.. no sub..

i have had issues with the alternator cable unplugging itself but i checked it and it was fine. ANY INPUT?!?!?!?!?!

 

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Is it even possible that anything ignition related can be effected by the stereo?

 

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<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by plikit &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
1) every once in a while when i start my car the radio will lose all power (clock gets reset, sound settings, radio stations are lost) its very brief, the face will just flicker once.

2) today, i started my car and everything lit up EXCEPT the lights behind the speedo and tach. the needles lit up but the actual guages did not. i shut the car off, and restarted her and she was normal...

3) this one i MAY be imagining: i gain power when my stereo is OFF... lol. my stereo isnt anything huge. 720W amp running components in the front and 3ways in the back.. no sub..

i have had issues with the alternator cable unplugging itself but i checked it and it was fine. ANY INPUT?!?!?!?!?! </TD></TR></TABLE>

1. Electrical stuff in cars is so sensative to little tiny things that just a little dirt particle or rust spot can cause all kinds of random stuff. You probably have 1 or 2 pins on your radio harness that don't connect 100% perfectly....either that or it's something inside the radio coming loose.

I would pull your radio out a little, unplug the harnesses and put a little dielectric grease on the pins and see if that helps.

2. My whole cluster used to go off at random times when I started my car, but now it doesn't do it anymore...hasn't in more than a year. Just another one of those little electrical things...you could try to inspect all the connections and look inside the gauges themselves, but it's probably not worth in unless it's a major problem.

3. I guess technically you do loose .0005 hp when your radio is on, becuase the voltage regulator (the brain) inside the alternator does constantly adjust alternator resistance and output to keep it where it's supposed to be under different loads. More resistance on the alternator = more hp robbed from the engine. Not enough to notice though, I'm sure

Hope that helps some....