Ok so I've been trying to figure out why my car runs and sounds like a Subaru. Everything was replaced on the ignition side. My buddy took a look and previous owner had run the main negative ground fr the battery to the tranny not to the frame. Then, he ran another smaller wire from the negative on the battery not to the frame but to the top of fender. With paint between wire and fender still there. I'm pretty sure the big main negative wire should go from battery right to the frame, and then another wire from trans to frame right? Would these grounds ran like the way they are cause it to run with no power, just misfiring like crazy? Also, with headlights turned on idle drops a lot, and do power window same thing.

 

A lot of times it is one ground cable that is connected to the batt. at one end, at the engine on the other end and to the chassis in the middle.

Other times it is a heavy cable from batt. to engine and a smaller gauge from batt., [same cable clamp] to chassis.

It makes no diff. how it is done, as long as both the engine and chassis are grounded back to the batt. 94

 

Yea, but the big cable right to the trans. And then some small cable from batt to fender. Not a very good chassis ground in my opinion. And that's the only chassis ground other than valve cover to rad support

 

Fix the grounds clean the terminals with sand paper. If you have a multi meter check the voltage at the battery and voltage at your power cable to the distributor, should be the same voltage or no more than half a volt diffrence.

 

Ok I tried to move ground around but other spot runs worse. So that tells me it has to be. Grounding issue. I just Need to find a really solid grounding point I guess

 

Tried diff grounding points and no matter what seems to get worse not better. Now runs really rough and when u rev can see dash lights dim and get brighter. Guess I'll go back to original grounding points for now. Still runs like crap that way but better. Puzzled any ideas?

 

Check the harness ground at the thermostat housing.
Check for breaks in the harness ground. I have no idea whatt car harness ecu your using so I won't start shooting in the dark on where exactly you should check.
The wire harness ground is most likely your issue.

 

It's a b16a in a DA. obd 1 harness and dizzy. I checked that ground at the stat. Nice and tight there. HAS to be something with the ground I'm assuming. It's puzzling to me.

 

It is the engine that uses the most current, so a thinner lead can be used for the chassis ground, but it depends on how thin it is and where and how it is grounded, [attached], an 8ga would be more then enough, just make one up and run it from the batt. to the shock tower. 94

 

Doesn't matter if its tight take off the bolts sand the terminals down. Elecrtricity flows from positive to negative. If there is a lot of resistannce on the negative end current can't flow. When there's a heavy load on a circuit ( head lights motor window motor). Its gonna show the effects even more.
Have you checked voltage at your battery?
Just looking at hings and moving them with your hands does nothing. You need to go off data that you find as you. Trouble shoot.

 

Also check continuity from the thermostat housinf to the battery negative should read zero or very close to it.

 

Ok thanks for all the advice. Doing all the voltage tests today see what I come up with hopefully I can figure it out today

 

Update, so this morn my speedo stopped working. However the tach still works. Sef related to voltage issue? Bad grounds

 

Speedo is cable driven, if this is a 91 RS.

Either speedo itself is bad, the cable is bad, the VSS drive, [cable drive] is bad.
A simple test is to disconnect cable from the cluster, drive the car and see if cable "spins" if not, it is the cable or cable drive, if so, the problem is the speedo itself. 94

 

O ok ill have to check it. And it's a 1990 teg gs with the b16a swap

 

And since the speedo is cable controlled not ecu controlled would it effect vtec working? Or no. Tach still works

 

I beleave VSS is in the cluster on G2s, which means no speedo cable or drive so no VSS output. 94