Stereo and rpm's??? [Archive] - Chevelle Tech

: Stereo and rpm's???


somuscle70
Jan 29th, 06, 6:13 AM
My stereo goes out when the rpm's go over 1000 or so.
It's weird when I stop at a light and the rpm's drop it turns back on.

Anyone every heard of this?

Wheelhop
Jan 29th, 06, 8:03 AM
Do you have stock distributor in there? If so, you might want to put a capacitor on there to limit interference.

Jim Streib
Jan 29th, 06, 10:47 AM
My stereo goes out when the rpm's go over 1000 or so.
It's weird when I stop at a light and the rpm's drop it turns back on.

Anyone every heard of this?

Yes I have. It turned out to be on a customer's car that the alternator regulator was going out. I put in a new stereo for this customer and checked it out and everything worked. He goes and leaves and when he was driving down the road the stereo stopped working (just the audio went out and the display was still lit up). I thought is was weird so I told him to come back and I reved up the motor to see if it would stop working and it didn't do it the first couple of times. I knew all of the interior wiring I had done was fine and asked him if his old radio did it and he said it didn't, so for some reason I took my meter and hooked it up to the battery and reved the motor up again a few times. At one time the meter read over 17 volts or so and when that happened the audio on the radio quit. We did it a few more times and monitored the battery voltage and only when the voltage peaked above 16 volts did the audio stop coming out of the radio. I told him that made sense as most radio's have a working voltage of between 8-15 volts or so. Above this or below this they will not work properly.
I told him to get a new alternator and put it on and I called him later and with the new alternator (internally regulated GM) the problem with the radio went away.

If on yours the battery voltage is fine then it could be a connection somewhere but by tracing down where you are lossing the voltage (or ground) you should find the problem.

I have also seen on cars while being driven a wire can become shorted and this could be a problem in yours possibly. You just have to troubleshoot it some.

Jim