I drive home at night and whenever I turn on my headlights when the car is at 900rpms for idle, the rpms will drop down to below 500 rpms. Highbeams are even worse. The car sounds like it's going to die and launching is hard cause I have to slip the clutch even more since the rpms are so low. What should I be looking at here? It also does this when I turn on my heater, defroster, air.

 

My first guess is that you need to replace your alternator.

 

Turn lights off till after you go?

 

I have the exact same problem. I remedied it by raising the idle to about 1200 (cold). Since removing the FITV, I had to raise the idle upto 1300-1400 (cold). Whenever i turned on the headlights/heater/rear defroster the rpms would drop slightly. With all of these things on, my idle is around 1100 cold and 800 warm. You just want to adjust the idle screw on the TB with all of the accessories on to make sure you don't stall.

 

^^^ you idle at 800 warm? thats damn high

 

#1- you might have a fuse thats too big. this would cause you to "drain" more power than you need to?

#2- beggining symptoms of alternator wear/failure?

#3- grounds?


how old is the motor in the car? how new is the alt. belt and when is the last time you had your alt. checked?

 

i have the same problem..

but it can't be the alternator on my car, since it was change recently.

any ideas what's causing the problem?

(sorry for the hi-jacking this thread)