Need help diagnosing a problem.

[ryan625]

My 88 with a 1JZ swap recently started having issues. Currently it will not start.
Coming home one night the car started having idling issues then died at an intersection. It wouldn't start so I got it pushed into a parking lot and tinkered with it until it started again. The electronics would come on but it wouldn't start, then nothing would come on the next time I turned the key. Then it fired up but would not idle so I had to pump the gas to keep it from dying every time I stopped until I got home.
I checked the battery and it has a full charge but now the car will not start and nothing inside the car comes on at all. I am not sure what would make this happen...do I have a bad alternator?

Thanks for the help!
-Ryan

 

[shipkiller]

I'll start with the obvious:

checked the ecu for leaking caps?

 

[hvyman]

Like dash lights or anything like that will come on?

Check the little wire on the battery.

 

[ryan625]

I have not checked the ECU yet.
And all the connections look good at the battery, I'll try tracing them to see if anything is going on.

 

[91Supra313]

Dont bother tracing wires yet until you just look at the ECU. if the caps are leaking ( which if IIRC 1Js are notorious for it) then you either need a new ECU or send it in to Aaron at Drift Motion and have him rebuild it.

 

[te72]

Get her figured out yet? I'll add my two experiences with starting issues on my car:

-Main harness connection at the positive battery terminal. Mine was (due to not having a proper battery tie down), holding on by literally 3 little strands of copper. Re-wired it in a parking lot, solved that problem, and have since fixed the lack of tie down.

-ISCV. Sometimes these go bad, unfortunately they're kinda expensive. There are a couple fixes for this, poke around this section.

 

[blackwidtan]

He says nothing comes on at all so its obviously a power issue.. Checked the fusible link? They tend to go bad.

 

[57p00rbob]

If you have no dash lights, no buzzer, no nothing its not the ecu as it doesn't have power to mess up yet. As someone else said check your fuseable link/links, also check connections at both ends of battery cables, if your batt is fully charged your alt is fine. Fuses/fuse box could be dirty/rusty getting poor connection. Sounds like you have an intermitant open circuit, think of it this way, electricity is like water, it will always take the least resistant path. Or if it can go nowhere [bad connection] instead of doing all that work [cranking engine] least path of resistance....

 

[ryan625]

Well I finally got around to looking at my car, I have been stupid busy so it has taken a while.'
ECU is good, I checked it because it was easy to get to and rule out.
Battery is fully charged so it sounds like the alternator is good then?

Next step is to look at relays, fuses, and trace wires then?

 

[hvyman]

start at the battery and cables and work forward. Next would be fuses.

 

[JPsToyota]

Battery light will come on while it's running before it dies if the alternator is bad. If you have a good battery (it turns over strongly), the alternator isn't your no start issue.

 

[z4ck]

Codes??