Car nearly stalling when Amp is cranked up!

M

Micra Jim

Ex. Club Member
Hey,

When i have my music on, fairly loud to the point of people's head's turning in the street, my car (once i have my clutch down) will nearly cut out. Its like the amp is sucking all the juice from other parts of my car, i.e ECU.

Is there anyway of fixing this?

Someone recommended getting a new Alternator?

As i aint a wiz with car's, im not 100% if you could find a 'better' alternator? (do these things wear out?)

Would this fix my problem?

Thanks in Advance.
 
bigger alternator would solve your problem, but they are expensive as even on bigger cars, the power of the alternator isnt much different to on a smaller car, i'd go to a sound specialist like K&M acoustics, i was talking to there guy, and he had a list of high output alternators that were fitted to production cars, so when people require and alternator, he can save them money by gettin one of a scrapped car rather than a specialist one, i think by holding your clutch down though, your ecu doesnt try to meet demand? i dont no if this is true, just something i heard
 
It sounds like i really wants to meet the demand, but just can't adjust the rev's fast enough, so it is on the verge of stalling, but grabs it just in time! :D:D
 
in that case, bigger alternator, you must have a sick system in your car
 
Have you uprated the big three? See below:

Replace the factory ground wire between the battery and the car chassis with at least a 4-gauge cable. This will help minimize voltage drops caused by high resistance in the stock cable. Also replace the stock charging wire between the battery and the alternator with at least a 4-gauge cable. If the alternator has a chassis ground cable, upgrade that wire too.This is relatively inexpensive and should be done for every system 500 watts or higher in total amplifier power.

A bigger battery may be a better option for the moment. How old is your current one?

The alternator might be an idea with a new battery or batteries. Check out this link for alts. http://www.sahibs.com/ and look at Nissan (Datsun)

Might want to look at a K11 which is 70amps versus the k10's which is only 50. But alos check out Primeras & Sunny's and Pulsar GTIR's which are 80amps, Serena 90amps.
 
What on earth are you running?! I'm pulling over 120amps, and 1.4kwrms on the heaviest of tunes, and not managing to stall the car.

Sounds like you could do with a new battery?
 
hugh a bigger battery wouldnt do anything realy, if the draw from the system is making the car nearly stall, then the alternator cant keep up or theres a problem with his car, if the alternator cant keep up then having a bigger battery wont do anything, it will stillbe run down as theres to much draw from the system, the other things you posted are good ideas thought, i didnt think about that, thinking i may replace those wires sometime
 
How can I put this...

A BIGGER ALTERNATOR WILL NOT HELP AT ALL

Your amp needs power, so the alternator provides this, as it does so it loads the engine, by loading the engine the RPM drops.

You try larger alternator, your amp takes the same power, it places the same load on the engine, and thus the revs STILL drop.

Couple of points:

Its almost impossible to stall a car engine with an alternator. This is because as you place load the RPM falls this then means the alternator is slower, the result of which means it can provide less power so the load decreases and engine RPM stabilises but at a lower RPM.

If this is a real problem your only solution is to increase the idle speed by 100rpm or so.

BTW a larger battery WOULD help. Since it will provide some of the current as well as the altenator. Overall result the RPM would not fall as low - HOWEVER it would stay low for longer whilst the battery recovers from the minor discharge.

Ed
 
well when talking to the people at k&m acoustics, they were talking about bigger alternators being used for bigger systems and saying bigger batterys wont do any good, it doesnt matter how big the battery is, if its flat then its flat, if there rpm drops wouldnt the ecu increase fuel so the car doesnt stall?
 
Wont make any difference. All a bigger alternator means is it is able to put MORE load on the engine, in which case would potentially make RPM drop even lower. However in reality once the car gets to 500 rpm the alternator wont do anything anyway, as I said in my post above. My point about batteries is there is no way it would go flat whilst at idle for 10 mins or so, so on this basis a good battery WOULD help here - at least a bit anyway.

Finally the proplem here is nothing to do with the alternator or batteries, the idle is simply too low to maintain stable RPM with the stereo on.

Ed
 
i used to have this on my K10. However, it depends on what you used to mean by 'nearly stall'. On a big drop, my tickover used to drop from 800 to 450 rpm, which in a k10, makes the car shake in a big way. However, i had a really crap battery as well.

So, i recomend a new battery. DO NOT adjust your idle speed or anythng to do with the egine management system.
 
Cheers for the replys guys.

I was driving today, without the HU on, and when I put the clutch down it does the same as if i had the HU on, but not as worse.

So when i got home, i decided to stand by the car with the engine on and just listen to it. I seems to have trouble keeping at whatever RPM it needs to be at every 5 or so seconds. It will dip in RPM every so often, like its in a continious cycle, and shake the engine abit more like Slim said in a earlier post. Then it will regain the normal RPM. But then proceed to drop again and recover, etc etc.

I can't seeing it being the Battery, as it was replaced with a Halfords one less then a year ago.

The fact that the HU is on makes this drop in RPM much worse, then when the HU is off (hence nearly stalling).

Also, not sure if this has anything to do with this, but when i press the accelerator before i start the engine to ingage the choke, the engine will have slight trouble starting without me pumping the accelerator. It's like the choke isn't fully working(?).

Cheers for any replys.

Edit: Typo's.

P.s Just read Ed's post again (cheers), how would i increase the Idle speed?.
 
Like Hugh said, do NOT fit a Power Cap, these are more hassle than good. When your amp draws a lot of current it zaps it from the cap and then not only do the amps still need power it's still trying to charge the cap.

If you really need to. Use a 2nd battery in the boot and a split charge system.
 
Well i might try and tape up the holes in my air pan, make sure their isn't too much air going into the engine..

Also disconnect the amp all together, incase that is sucking power even though it aint getting used.

I dont think i will change the idle speed just yet, as ive never changed it before, so that aint the problem. Might be a last resort though.
 
kristian said:
could be a lambada sensor prob.
Click to expand...

Dont believe the K10 has one

Mine also does this Jim when both subs are very high! Feels like its gonna die at junctions. I was told by Quicky to check the big three too. I know one of my earths has snapped, so might be a place to start!
 
Micra Jim said:
Well i might try and tape up the holes in my air pan, make sure their isn't too much air going into the engine..
Click to expand...

Carbs don't work like that. If there is more air, there is more fuel. Holes have nothing to do with this problem.
 
Same Problem

I wish I knew what it was I have the same problem, the cars never actually stalled on me but it sounds well doge when your at the traffic lights in neutral.

It sounds ok at first but then revs down, shuders the car a bit and revs back up slightley. Is this anything to do with the automatic choke?

Turning my system up deffinatley makes it worse but I cant imagine that it puts too much draw on the power. If the alternator cant provide enough power then why doesnt the car take it from the battery?

Does the alternator vary the pressure (cant think of the word im looking for) it puts on the engine depending on the revs or load, if it doesnt then turning the stereo up therefore increasing load shouldnt make any difference to the idle RPM.

Surley this would all be solved by increasing the idle RPM??
 
its the spark plugs and leads need changing or its the airflow sensor! One of these to keep stalling your car!
 

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