voltage spikes

[lawhon]

past couple of days..................well, let me go back............used to do several sound comps, and only thing I didn't upgrade was the stock alternator, with that said, past couple of days/weeks, my battery light has been poping on and off, sometimes my volt guage goes way up to over 14 volts...........and sometimes down to 12, all at crusing speeds. Tempature doesn't matter it seems. Think I"ve had the life out of my stock alternator? or any other suggestions?

now running two subs, battery in trunk, all wiring is 0ga to the trunk, adn 4 everywhere else. Upfront, the "big 3" have all been upgraded to 4ga and a few additional grounds made. Moderate power is made by 2 amps and one cap. All are wired correct, almost 99% positive!!

[boxcarfan]

go to autozone and get it tested with it in your car lol.

[Anonymous User]

since your voltage changes, it possibly is your voltage regulator [ dont know if neons have them or not]

b/c if your alt was bad, you car will keep dying & needing jump starts since your car would run off the battery only not, both the batt & alt. could also be that your pushing your alt to hard, b/c it now has to charge 2 batts & a system.

Also try getting rid of the cap & just upgrading all your wire to 0ga.

This should be in the audio section too...btw.

[lawhon]

wooops........sorry, forgot we had one here. Well, only have one battery, not two, and Yea, beenthink'n of gett'n rid of the cap. I will say, the 4 ga wire that I have is only maybe 3ft long in the trunk, so I don't feel this is a weak point in my car? Can someone please move this to the audio thread?!

[occasional demons]

A loose ground will also cause voltage to jump up and down like that. I know from experience.

[Anonymous User]

did you also sand down to bare metal when you did the big 3?

[lawhon]

naw, didn't sand them down. When I did the starter ground..........man I had soooooooo much trouble, I just said screw it!