simplyzbest92

alright guys its like this! i recently heard about this website and was told it was a very good site to refer to. good timing too, because im in a very big situation that might determine my decision whether i should keep my car or not. so its like this, i have a 92 tt, just last week i noticed the engine fluctuating in idle. sometimes it would stay at 2000 rpm and other times it would be at 500 rpm. i was advised that it might have been because of the cold weather lately. a couple of days ago the check engine light went on. i also noticed that everytime i drove on a bumpy freeway or ran over a dip or bump in the road. the hicas light in the guage cluster would flicker for a split second. one time it actually stayed on, up until i turned the car off. i also noticed that everytime i rev the car up, once i let go of the accelerator, the idle of the rpm would go drastically down, almost tapping at the 0 rpm hash mark, then it would jump back into regular idle. it does the same thing when i am coasting or on the freeway, the minute i put it in to nuetral to slow down, the rpm needle would drop really low and go back to regular idle. it died on me once on the freeway when i was exiting as i threw it into nuetral. so everytime i slow down i have to work my way down the gears to keep it at idle till i eventually stop. now here is the bad part, (yes, theres more!) i was a a stoplight today about to make a left. i noticed my car starting to die again, so i tried to give it some gas to pick the idle up a little bit so i can get off first gear smoothly. the minute i stepped on the gas, the car died all of a sudden, i saw smoke coming from the hood of the car (it trully is something no z enthusiast should experience from the drivers seat, very painful to watch!) immediatly i turned the car off and and threw on my hazards, only they didnt work, actually nothing electrical worked. i popped my hood open and checked to see where the smoke was coming from. keep note i was still in the middle of the street. i decided to start the car up again, and the temp was at HOT! i made a quick u turn and pulled into a liquor mart. i checked under the hood again still smoking noticed that the smell was not anything that would be coming from the motor. it was the smell of toasted wires that was behind the passenger headlight. it wasnt the headlight harness that burnt up but it seemed to be in front of the oil pump for the shocks. there i saw burnt harnesses melted togeter. i also noticed smoke coming from the rear fenderwell of the rear wheels. i let the car cool down for about an hour and started it up again. it started but it was trembling like crazy. i then decided to drive home since i lived just down the block. i noticed that when the lights were on, the car died. my braking was also affected. luckily i made it home. i know you guys are asking yourself why i still tried to drive it home in the first place, well, to be honest the place where this happened is no place for a car like a 300zx to be at, very bad neighborhood. so this is my story, i tried to be as detailed as possible. if you took the time to read this, please spend a little more to help me out. i do not know what the hell happened and how to fix it. somebody help me

- just another die hard z enthusiast -

RPS13_GZ32

very strange....

halfway through reading that I thought it might be like your timing belt slipped, or maybe a broken throttle linkage, but after the smoldering wiring harness....It may be a huge short that is effecting your FI system or something. I'm not really sure, ive only been a Z owner a short time and haven't heard anything like this, my car had a similar problem with the bogging RPMs but that was just a broken linkage. Sounds like theres something wrong here, i'll think about it some more, good luck.

I guess i'd start by trying to work down to that harness and figure out what really happened down there, if it is just a big melted short then id just try to test and repair all of the ruined wires and see where you stand from there.

bardabe

definately a short. somethign similar happened to me. anwyho Taske it to a Z specialty shop.or somewhere they have a real good reputation with Imports. I am in california so I have Mckinney motorsports, Signal Auto, and Stillen. so If I where you I'd look arround for the nearest shop that specialise in Z cars or has a bad *** reputation. liek Z1 AMZ Jim Wolf, shops liek that.

simplyzbest92

well im back again with concluded news about what happened earlier this week. it seems that my car had went through some sort of shortcircuit. what happened was that the baterry terminal i had was touching the hood. the terminal clamp on the posotive side was hitting the hood everytime i i went over the bump. i had taken it to my mechanic this morning and i must say the the damages look even worse in broad daylight. the positive terminal kept on touching the hood so it evidently grounded itself. now when that happens, all other electrical lines and harnesses tend to look for its own ground. when that happens the lines get real hot, so thats what pretty much burnt everything else. wire wraps, insulations and harnesses. this would also explain why the emergency brake gave out. you see, the e-brake cable goes towards the rear of the wheels, it tried to ground itself. since a ground line gets hot and starts to glow when it gets really hot, any stress given to that line such as pulling or yanking will give way. i asked my mechanic how can it still snap, its an emergency brake. he simply explained that when this happens the cable line gets weak. now i have to replace the e-brake line and the rest of the wires that burnt away. the extent of the damage has not even been completely checked. the worst case scenario is that i would have to buy a new electrical line and harness loop starting from the ECU, and man is that exspensive! but he said that hopefully some of it could be salvaged and pray that just some of the insulation burnt off. now we come to the root of it all. i recently had my battery changed about a month ago. now if you noticed, there are two rods holding a metal plate to keep battery down in place which keep the battery from moving around while you drive. now with my car, the previous owner had lost the tie down. which explains the battery hitting the hood everytime i went over a dip or a bump on the road. so i hope my situation that i just went through will be on the minds of everybody else, which is the importance of a battery tie down. ive seen many people without it and have had somewhat of a similar problem like mine, just not as disastrous. with mine the positive terminal welded itself to the hood. thanks for the help though. hopefully other z owners will keep my situation as something to learn off of. its just too bad it had to happen to me.

RPS13_GZ32

damn, that sucks man. I hope the damage isn't too bad, that could have potentially been worse than it was, just glad you didnt have an electrical fire or something. I'll keep that in mind next time I replace my battery.

CanyonCarver

You should also be careful how you position the positive cable on the battery and then tighten it down. Also, that red plastic cover is there for a reason. When I put a new battery in a coupla months ago, I noticed that the cable end could come into contact with some of the body even with the battery properly secured.

91zxtt

Whoa, wait a minute,...your mechanic told you that the reason your e-brake cable snapped was because of the electrical short. The e-brake doesn't have an juice going to it. All it has is a small sensor that tells you when it's engaged. It wouldn't have anything to do with the cable snapping. My recommendation....find a new mechanic.

I do believe what he said about needing a new harness. Just make sure you get the right one. He's talking about the harness that runs from the ecu; which is the EFI harness; which isn't at all tied to the hazard lights or head lights, so that would be the wrong harness.

Zgringo

Right on 91zxtt. If you positive cable shorted it would burn it and anything it came in contact with. If the post came in contact with the hood whole different story, if in contact for long would smoke the battery, and if running I'm not sure what it would do to the alternator and charging system.

91zxtt

And why would anyone not have the battery secured in place?