woodpecker

i have a 92 soarer, just recently when i was driving home i noticed that everytime i reved the car, the heater would blow faster, and that the interior lights would light up brighter, so i was like ****, alternator is dying, then the japanese error message came on, sayin that the alternator isnt charging the battery, along with the cat warnng light

so i today i got the alternator rebuilt, came home and installed it, went for a test drive with everything on(stereo, headlights, heater blowing hard..), the after a while the same error msg came on again...and interior lights were dimming. could i have a bad battery?

ALLWiTE2JZ

I would get your battery tested at you local auto parts store. That's what I did when I had dimming/flickering problems in my SC300. Turned out my battery and alternator were good when they tested it and it ended up being a lose ground wire on my car. But definitely get your alternator and battery tested and then go from there. No sense in replacing things if you don't know for sure if they are bad parts.

woodpecker

where is this lose ground wire you speak of ?

ALLWiTE2JZ

Well, when I had dimming/flickering problems on my car, I went to my local AutoZone (might be different name where you are located) and they said both my battery and alternator tested good. So after that, I just disconnected my battery terminals and poured Coca-Cola (or any other soda product that contains phosphoric acid in it) all over the terminals and battery posts and let the soda fizz and bubble to loosen up any battery acid/gunk that could be conflicting with powering the car. Then after I let it soak, I scrubbed the hell out of the battery terminals and posts until they were nice and clean and shiny looking. Then I reconnected both terminals nice and tightly and then traced some of the wires for the ground terminals to where they go on the rest of the car and tightened some of them. Then I started up my car and turned on both of my 55W HID kits, heater, stereo system, etc, etc. And the problem seemed to make the dimming/flickering problem stop a little bit. I believe that my battery is not powerful enough for the stuff I got in my car right now running at the same time. My stock battery only has 640 cranking amps and 550 cold cranking amps so the dimming/flickering is probably normal for me. But after I cleaned up my battery terminals/posts it seemed to help a little. I would do the same for yourself as well. Even if they don't look dirty, do it. Because mine didn't look dirty at all and after I did it, it help significantly. If you clean them and then it doesn't make a difference, trace some of the ground wires from the negative terminal on the battery to the rest of the car. Tighten them accordingly and your problem should be solved. If you are powering a lot of stuff off of your stock battery, depending on how much power you are demanding from the electrical system in your SC, you may need to upgrade BOTH the battery/alternator to keep up with the amount of power you want to use. But like I said before, get your battery/alternator tested, clean the battery terminals/posts, tighten some grounds, THEN try to upgrade the battery with more cranking amps/cold cranking amps. If the problem STILL occurs upgrade the alternator. After doing all that you should have no problem. Hope this helps. Good luck.