First of all i have a 98 integra RS. Two weeks ago I installed an aftermarket stereo using the conversion harness not just cutting up wires, had a small 8 inch subwoofer with a kenwood amplifier. Everything was working perfectly fine, the same day my car randomly shuts off but the battery indicator on the dash was on but my stereo was still working and the dome light also. The car turned on with no problems. About a week ago I upgraded to a kenwood mono-d 1800 watt amp with a 300 watt kicker comp10, put a new Fosgate amp kit. That same day after all the wiring was completely done i turned it on and going good until i raised the volume it turned off. After that the car wouldnt crank on, I unpluged the power cable from the amp to the battery and disconnected my stereo and it still wouldnt crank up. Finally i cleaned up my terminals and the car started on with no problems at all. The next day i completely changed the negative and positive terminals and cleaned up all the corrosion it had. Wired everything back up. So now every time it cranks up perfectly fine when I leave for school at 7am and when its about 7 25 the car completely shuts off, the battery indicator comes on and the car doesnt crank on. My stereo and everything still works fine but the car isnt getting power to turn the car on and the only way I get it on is by push starting it.
I know it isnt the starter because i just replaced that like two months ago
Any inputs of what could it be?

 

Check your main power and ground connections, pay close attention to the batt to chassis and chassis to engine ground and the batt. to engine bay fuse box power connection and the main fuses.
Also check the batt. to starter motor connection.

A simple test is to use a set of jumper cables, connect the ground cable to the batt. and the engine, the power cable to the batt. and the batt. terminal on the starter motor, try and start the car, if the car starts, disconnect the power jumper and try and start the car again, if car still starts the problem is the grounds, [batt. to chassis and/or chassis to engine. 94

 

Thanks for the quick reply first of all, so i should connect one set of the jumper cables to the battery ground and the starter motor and the other set to the negative side terminal and the positive side terminal?

Forgot if i said this but all these problems started the same day i installed the stereo

 

The stereo most likely takes less volts, and amps, to run than it takes to turn over the starter. Your battery may be marginal. Use a voltmeter/multimeter and see what the voltage is at the battery when this happens. A battery of less than 12.5 volts is fairly discharged. You cannot always tell from voltage alone as a worn battery may show 13.2 volts fresh off of a charger, or freshly driven (alternator) and have little amperage. You could also have a poor ground to the starter, but sounds like battery to me. When you turn everything off for a while, the voltage rebounds slightly, possibly enough for a start. I cannot tell from your story, are you saying it turns off while running, or will start at 7, and not start at 7:25. When you turn up the volume, you more rapidly drain the battery, so no start. Volts are easy to measure, but amps are power. Volts can give an idea about amps is you know enough of the conditions. You could also get your battery load tested at a battery place.

 

Well my batter was made in 08, i just ran a battery check at my job and it passed with flying colors. It didnt even needed to be charged at all. The starter i just replaced and never had a problem with the car turning on until this stereo came along. What im trying to say is that i turn my car on at 7 and it turns on perfect and than leave for school while im driving it around 7 25 thats when it cuts off

 

Check grounds as noted, and battery voltage when is will not start. Stereo may be draining the battery. Some batteries last years, but occasionally you get a bad one. Most batteries do not like to be discharged, most are not deep cycle, and it can finish them off. However, it should not die while running if just low battery, so alternator and connections/grounds.

 

Well hopefully it's a ground related situation because it all started when I put all this stereo stuff. I'm going to get a voltmeter to check when the the car just cuts off when driving. I've had this problems since this Friday that has passed by. Do you guys think that the stereo wiring could of triggered maybe like a shortage or something. I'm just ores of being at traffic hour and my car just dying lol

 

A short should kill it, and not sure why it would be intermittent, or possible heat sensitive. I am still thinking battery, alternator, or ground. You may have messed with ground when installing. Presumably you have a fuse, and that should pop with a short.

 

Not exactly...

What the jumper cables do is replace the stock power and ground to the starter, with your set of jumper cables, connect one end to the batt. posts, [neg.(-) to neb.(-) batt. post and pos.(+) to batt. pos.(+) post, the other end of jumpers go to the engine and starter, [neg.(-) cable to any ground point on engine, if you can clamp it to the starter motor or close to it, do so the pos.(+) cable clamps to the pos.(+) terminal, [batt. terminal] on the starter motor, this way the starter motor will have a direct power and ground from the batt.

The cars starter motor requires more current, [power] then anything else in the car, by far.

To take the audio system out of the equation, either remove the main amp power lead fuse or disconnect the power lead itself from the batt, although the audio system by itself can not be causing the problem you are having, IMO it is just coincidental that your problem started after the audio install. 94

 

Oh okay i now i have idea of how exactly your telling me to do it. Just double checking because i dont want any further problems to happen. So one end of the jumper cables to negative terminal and the other to positive terminal( such as you would to jump start a car) than the other end, the negative grounding itself to someone on the engine block and the positive to the positive on the starter...Sound about right? Than once i turn on the car completely remove the jumper cables and turn on the car again?

Well as of today i got the car stereo harness and took the black cable which would be ground and actually grounded it to bare metal instead of the black cable that comes out the cars stock harness. I drove around for a bit didnt have any type of problems but ill make sure tomorrow morning.

 

I've been told that it could of been my fuel pump? Cold that be causing my car to completely shut off?

 

It could definitely be the fuel pump, or the PGM-FI Main Relay, the coil or ICM, all can be effected by temp.

The fuel pump and PGM-FI Main Relay can be checked on the spot if car stalls, turn ign. off then on again to the run position, [not start] you should hear the fuel pump prime for a few sec. and then turn off, if you do not hear this the problem is the pump or the PGM-FI Main Relay, you can usually determine which it is, if you do not hear the fuel pump prime, do not turn off the ign., give the PGM-FI Main Relay a few good taps, if you have "unmounted" it and have it hanging you can just bang it up against the dash... http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/mainrelay.html.

If you have the back seat out, [bottom] you can bang on the access panel to see if the pump will start working, I drove for 2 weeks like that, [waiting for my Holly pump] no back seat and had to give the panel a rap once or twice a day to get the pump going. 94

 

So today in the morning, i had my stereo on with the amp and subwoofer. Car died on me twice going to work. It turned on after 5 mins. No push starting just kept trying and it finally turned on. When the first time it turned off i turned the stereo back on and it died again like 5 minutes later. In the morning car starts right up with no struggle and when i left for work the same thing. At work i took off my back seats and turned the on switch and the fuel pump turns on. At this point i disconnected power from amp. Tried it again one more time the fuel pump turns on but the car doesnt. Very strange....I ran a battery test and its completely fine. Ran a alternator test and thats good also. So on the way home from work my car doesnt shut off at all. I hear that the fuel pump is turning on and functioning fine.
But as for the main relay i only heard one click out of the three. Im not to sure if the first turn its considered a click but it sounds like one. The second click i hear it after the check engine light turns off but no third click at all.
So as of right now i completely removed the subwoofer and amp, disconnected my stereo and the harness( im still hoping thats the reason why its cutting off)

Heres a video i took of the fuel pump cutting on. Its more of a hearing video not a seeing lol(taken with my ipod btw)

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3108/img0089.mp4

 

Update::
Process of elimination
Stereo, sub, amp out of the car
Checked my main relay it does click 3 times from what i hear( will post a video soon)
Fuel pump does "sound" like it comes on.

Noticed that my check engine light came on and saw that my number 2 boot was disconnected from the distributor(must have accidently unplugged it when checking starter ground)
Ran the obd2 scanner on it and it said cylinder 2 misfiring
Plugged boot back in and erased the code
Now check maintenance required light blinks like 10-11 times than cuts off when first start the car

Any ideas?

 

Have you tried the CEL reset button under the dash?

Does engine still stall now that audio system is disconnected?94

 

Well the maintenance light I turned off by pressing the blue button right under the dashboard so that's gone now. But on my way to work it turned off after ten minutes. At this point I have no type of stereo equipment. It died and it turned on couple of minutes later. Drove less than a couple of feet and it died again. Than at that point it wouldn't even attempt to turn over at all nothing. Like it really died out on me.
So as of right now I'm going to change spark plugs, wires, starter, fuel filter but not the fuel pump yet

 

Since it started with wiring in the sub/stereo I still wonder about ground or bad connection. Even though the stuff is out, the wiring and connections may not be good. Did you cut or splice anything, or connect directly to the battery? Also, have you established that the pump works when it will not run, or cuts off?

 

Well all the stereo wiring has been covered up by electrical tape so it wont touch any metal. The only cable connected straight to my battery are the amp 4 gauge power cable and my foglights. when the car turned off the fuel pump came on once but after that no luck. I unplugged it and replugged same thing but it waned to start

 

Could there be a bad connection or bad wire under the tape where you were working? I am not a fan of coincidences, so, I wonder about the area you disturbed. Broken of loose wire, or bad connection.

 

As far as I know the only cable still connected would be the negative ground that bolted under a bolt by the spare tire. Everything else is taped up and the power cable is disconnected from the battery. I'm he same way that u are. I still believe it's related to the stereo

 

How did you connect the stereo and sub to power? You must have spliced or loosened something something to connect.

 

Well the only wires that were cut were the ones that came in the fosgate amp kit. No wires that actually come from the car were spliced. Stereo is connected by harness that I bought from best buy to plug into my car harness and than the actual stereo harness to the bestbuy harness. Those wires were cut to show wire and connected together by actual wire connectors not electrical tape. The sub is connected to the amp and there is exposed wire from the amp to the power. I'll take a picture to clarify

 

I have done similar, which is why I asked. I had to wire in the sub to power, and large enough guage to carry the amp load. I have a fused hot lead from the battery to the amp. Just wondering if in doing that, you loosened something.

 

Well from the battery to the amp I do have a 100a fuse in-between And remember taking off the battery tray to see if I cold find a spot to run the amp power cable threw

 

So, you had the battery out?? Check connections. I have an aftermarket alarm and sub wired in, and all of this comes together at the battery post. How did you connect the power cable to the battery? Just wondering about connections, and grounds.