car stalling when bass hits hard?

1997 Saturn SC2
1000w 2 channel pushing two 12's and a 400w 4channel pushing 4 6x5's.
1.5 Farad Cap.
Ground points are each of the two bolts of the trunk latch.

Every now and then, my car will bog down under normal acceleration or while sitting at a light it will just stall out, I was beginning to suspect a fuel filter or fuel pump, but just today I realized it is only happening when my system is on and bass is hitting hard. I then saw the rpm's dropping on eat bass hit, hooked up a cheap ebay Volt-reader and can see the voltage also dropping each hit. It will idle around 14.5v but on a hard hit it will drop down to about 13.70v. Not sure how accurate this thing is though.
The only odd thing about this is, my system has been working and hitting hard for about a year or two with no issues, but this specific issue started about 7 months ago, for two weeks and went away, now it's back again.

So...
Could this be a ready to go Alternator, Battery or possibly a ground issue???

If anyone has seen this before or know the best place to start checking please let me know. I know how to replace the parts I just don't know exactly where to start troubleshooting.

I'm going to check my ground point with my multimeter.

*to clarify, it did start 7 months ago, but I haven't driven much up until about a month ago, so the problem may have never gone away. I use my system frequently, usually a relatively loud volume levels as well.

It happens but I forgot what it is. I was at a transmission shop and the that car does it when the guy played his bass hard. It was some sensor that, messed with.

CTS sensor? (coolant temp)

I also forgot to add, yesterday leading up to one of the two times it stalled out at a red light, as I stopped the rpm's stayed at 2k as opposed to just under 1k as usual. It was just sitting there floating. Then it dropped and just died out. But this has only happened once so far with the RPM floating.

Good to know... I took some pics to help the situation.

The trunk latch is where I have all 3 grounds coming into, (cap, amp1, amp2)

This is the power lead from the battery.

This is my cap, which I used to distribute the other power lead to my other amp. I only have one ground coming off of here, should I double up the ground to equal the gauge of the extra power lead?

Would it help at all for me to double up the ground on the cap, as well as add another 2 gauge ground wire from the battery itself to something grounded in the engine bay? I keep reading around that the power wire must always match the size of the ground wire, but is it unsafe and better if the ground wire is a slightly larger gauge than the power leads?

When I go home, I'm going to take off my trunk latch and re-sand everything down again, assemble and spray with paint. Then I'm going to check the reading with my multi-meter to see if it's close enough to 0. (I never checked that since I put the system in over a year ago, so I probably should)

I can't for the life of me remember the sensor even if I heard the right one I still would not remember.

Ditch the cap and do the big 3 others will tell you that too.

I want to say it was the transmission knock sensor. I kkow it was a transmission shop that found the problem for issue with the bass pounding.


Sorry I can't help you more hope you get it squared away. Or someone can point you in the right direction.

Also get your charging system checked out my be that too.

Does anyone know if I need to double up the cap's negative line as well as add another ground to my battery as well? i do have extra cable leftto do this. also i would like to know, is it ok to have a larger gauge ground than the power wire?

First, change out your cheap Ebay meter for a real volt meter. Sear's sells cheaper Craftsman meters that are better then nothing ($25 or so). Watch the voltage as the bass hits. Dropping to 13vdc shouldn't cause the car to stall. Dropping to 10 or below will be problematic.

Don't bother with another ground from your cap. I would, however, worry about the grounds under the hood. You need to research the "big 3" and install those three cables.

I would also look in to a high performance battery and possibly a larger alternator.

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Kevin Pierson

Ditto.

Stalls are usually because of a load's "step increase" and no reserve to support it - ie, a weak battery or poor connections & cabling (often inadequate ground).

I agree relocate your ground to a bigger piece of metal and use a distro block


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1993 sdv
Alpine 4x6 6x9 5 1/4 swr-10d4
alpine v60
12.5 VGA flip down
Nettop pc w/10" touch screen
78nova
5-re audio 5x7 ,10" sub &
Xtx-500.5
"Take the faceplate off get the jumperpack"

I actually took apart the trunk latch and sanded the mating surface as well as the latch completely down to metal on all sides. After reassembly, to my surprise it fixed all my issues!! I then resprayed with black paint.

I am going to now do the big 3, as I never had before.

You need a bigger piece of metal the inner lining of the tire well I a good spot and having two different main grounds is gonna eventually give you a ground loop

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1993 sdv
Alpine 4x6 6x9 5 1/4 swr-10d4
alpine v60
12.5 VGA flip down
Nettop pc w/10" touch screen
78nova
5-re audio 5x7 ,10" sub &
Xtx-500.5
"Take the faceplate off get the jumperpack"