delay accessory for cold starts

that's a big voltage diff i would say. my battery rests at 12.67 volts, during crank and all ign/acc on lowest it 10.3 volts.Ted

2nd Year Tier 1 Medical School

Still installing as a hobby...pays for groceries

Compustar Expert

Tedmond's reading is correct. You've done the equivalent of a "drop" test and the rule of thumb there is that below 10volts is a dud battery. The other test would be to move all your constant power and grounds to the battery. Go home, forget remote start, just check the battery the next morning with only the hood open, you should get a reading of 12.6VDC at the battery.

And...the R/S cycle tells me that my 10 year old Clifford set-up from recycled bits is still the best, WTH would you need ACC till the engine is up and running. Intellistart apart from programming issues is still streets ahead technically of any other product except Compustar. That 10 year old time spell is about when the other mob took them over and dumped their designers.

Yea, it makes no sense to me why the acc. comes on for only a second then shuts back off again. My only guess is that internally the relays are powered off the same input and then the starter wire interrupts the acc relay which causes it to drop acc. But that is just a complete guess. OP. I would do what Howie said first since it will be easy. Temporarily disconnect the hood pin switch (but stay completely clear of the moving engine parts), put your leads directly on the battery and remote start it. This will give you te drop test of the battery itself. If you don't see the significant drop you did before then you know you need to rework your ground and/or 12v constant. Also, as far as I've seen (maybe I jumped over the post) you still haven't told us where and how you grounded the remote starter.Kenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205

Thanks for the information.

There is a screw in the wall to the engine, I loosened the screw, and put my ground wires behind the screw and re-tightened.  how would i check for a bad ground?

I will have to check the voltages at the battery tonight.   Really hoping the fix is the battery. 

I hope you meant a BOLT not a screw because screws work loose. Wrapping loose wires around it is not acceptable, they also work loose. First as offroadzj and Tedmond will confirm you need a properly crimped and possibly soldered terminal, if that was a 10mm spanner size bolt use an M6 or 6.4mm/1/4" ring terminal, scraping under to bare metal. How have you connected your cables in the first place? I see a pattern here. A couple of ohms resistance either end could explain a lot here. Taking it to extremes, installing mobile equipment to cars under the old British Standard, we did battery voltage charge tests before and after AND measured the resistance from our grounding point to the vehicle battery NEG. Guess what, few problems. In fact on the earlier (pre-cellular kit) it was mandatory to get both POS and NEG directly to the battery. P.S. When not sure, I even test grounding bolts! You've got 2 or 3 in the kick panels.

Exactly what Howie said; always use a bolt and always use a proper ring terminal. Also make sure that you scrape off any paint where the ground will be sitting to make sure you get a solid connection to bare metal. You are better off using a bolt in the kick panel. I don't know what it is, but I sometimes have issues with firewall bolts... but a lot of times what you think may go to the firewall may not be touching actual metal as there is a lot of padding, sound deadening, etc. that will kill your ground signal. After you check the battery voltage drop, test the resistance between the ground at the unit connector and the battery... or just move the ground to the kickpanel, to a bolt, with a ring terminal and scraping the paint behind the bolt.Kenny

Owner / Technician

KKD Garage LLC

Albany, NY 12205

And on many (right hand drive) Hondas the right hand kickwell is empty, the al;arm ECU goes there or with our Cat 1 units we can even bolt them in, there's as I said 2 + bolts and tapped (M6) threads, nice local ground and yes the kick panel is easier to get at than the bulkhead. Some vehicles "float" that engine bay bulkhead on rubber mounts rather than welding or as a double bulkhead (big Lexus) to eliminate noise etc. Whereas the kick panel is part of the safety cell and inherently stronger, welded better, thus better "chassis" grounding. Similar to the old adage about not grounding window closers in the door. I did a Nissan once with solenoid door opening, someone else did the wiring and wanted to know how come it worked with the door open but not closed. No comment.

I do mean bolt.  I didn't have ring terminals big enough at the time to get it on the stud., but will pick some up if that is the cause of the voltage drop. 

All the other cables, i have soldered.

Tonight, i will check for voltage drop at the battery, if it shows the significant drop again, optima yellow battery it is.  If there is no drop, I will check the ground by reading the resistance between the negative battery terminal and ground wire. 

Thanks, that was the right answer!