So ive been working to find out why I get performance gains at certain times and not others. There seem to be electrical issues as the sensors don't seem as responsive and my cars performance is intermittent. My car has good days and bad days, and its a big enough difference for me to notice.

The idle is rather rough, the gauges act funny and there are other weird electrical issues. While taking an ammeter to the battery under load the voltage stays around 13 volts so the alternator is working.

So I'm looking up more stuff on car electronics. I've had issues with the starter, battery and battery cables in the past. I've replaced them all but am wondering if theres something more I can do.

I've found a voltage stabilizer that looks promising based on reviews and explanations but what I've also seen are grounding kits. I think my cars problem is that the grounds it has are a little unstable or maybe something else.

My question is, if I were to buy a grounding kit, how would I set it up? And what else would you recommend?

 

Just an update. Looking more into it i saw the three points I should pay attention to. I'm gonna buy my own supplies to make better grounds. Terminal block and 2 gauge wires. Any opinions?

 

Just buy a t-pin and backprobe behind all the sensors. Most have 5 volt reference on one wire, ground on another, and signal wire on the other wire(normally the middle wire but not always)

You can get an online account at eautorepair.net which is mitchell on demand and alldatadiy.com which is all data. You can go to "testing" section and get the specific ranges that each sensor has and how to test it.

 

Ill look into testing the sensors. From what I've looked up over time, the upstream o2 sensor had funny readings (I put a new one in), the map sensor ground isn't reading according to the haynes manual specs (I had to rewire it with a new connector).

The car behaves like there are hit or miss issues. I had a 1297 at one point, jiggled around the ELD wires, redid some grounds and reset the ECU and that code didnt come back. There could very well be missing grounds as well. Theres a disconnected wire from the brake cylinder as well- I have no idea why and it hasn't caused any known issues.

When the AC is on I can hear a clicking coming from near the ECU. The speakers sometimes crackle, the lights dim when theres a bigger electrical load, the idle goes up when the AC is on. Stop me if you see something that seems familiar.

In the mean time I bought a grounding kit instead, not too expensive and great reviews. I'll see what it does. Its getting colder so theres less time I wanna spend outside working on my car and yet the more I need everything to be working for winter.

 

Sometimes with or without a "grounding kit"; what really does the trick is not the kit, but the whole business of taking it apart & cleaning it & tightening it. But if you renew the lugs on the end of the cables, and clean up the corrosion, that's a good thing.

 

Well I put a bigger ground on and grounded the valve cover directly to the chasis based on what ive read around. The car is actually responding a bit better, and its not placebo affect as ive grown very sensitive to these frequent fluctuations in my cars behavior. So for $20 I might as well try a grounding kit and see what happens. Ill keep looking around at the existing electrical and see whats off. This is one of the most annoying parts of a car and it seems so far like its been my issue all along...