Hello All,

I am completely new to the forum. I have a 1997 3000GT which I absolutely love. Someone just recently broke into my car and stole the stereo faceplate. So I thought of upgrading to a DVD/MP3 player with a 7" screen. To install it, I unhooked the battery and after finishing the install, I started the car up, it started up sounding like a tractor and there was smoke all over the place.

I have been trying to look up similar experiences online but am unable to. I thought of asking you guys. Does anyone know what's going on with my car? From what I have seen online, it seems like ECU gets reset once the battery has been disconnected for a few hours (overnight in my case) and then it takes time for it to re-learn everything. Thinking that's what it could be, I drove the car a good 20 miles and it was running very rough and was throwing out smoke at the begining (1st gear) and when I was returning home, the Check Engine light came on as well.


PLEASE HELP!!

Any help/suggestions are much appreciated.

Paul

 

Hmmm... thats fairly odd.

Well dissconnect your battery for 5 mins and reset it again. Then hook it all back up and let it idle for a while. It should be ok.

 

Disconnecting the battery will erase any idle adaptations and fuel trims stored in the ECU. This will explain a rough idle if you have it- but NOT "tractor like" noises, rough running, and smoke. My guess is that you may have accidentally disconnected something while working on the radio. If you're simply overstating the symptoms and only have a rough idle, try removing the intake hose and cleaning the throttle plate and throttle body with some decarb spray on a rag. That should clear up your idle issues.

Joel, CA

 

I would check the wires connected to the MAS. They are near the battery, and may have been damaged or come loose when you disconnected it. Also, check for any intake leaks in that same area.

 

I will check on the wires connected to the MAS. When I had one of the battery terminal cables off, I did try to tangle it with something adjacent to the battery. It could very well be MAS. Mine is the base model 3000GT and not a VR4. Is the MAS still located right next to the battery?

The smoke I mentioned above is actually white smoke coming out of the tailpipes. It seems like the car is running on 3 cylinders and not all 6. It can't just completely die on me and by just leaving the battery unhooked overnight? My car has been running flawlessly for years and I just didn't expect this to happen so quickly.

Thanks for all your suggestions. Please keep them coming. I will look into MAS tomorrow and will update you guys.

Thanks

Paul

 

Hey Guys,

My 3000GT is back and is running smooth and strong again. I do have some information that I want to share it with all of you, ofcourse unless you all already know about it. I had to go through a lot so it is a big lesson learned for me. Here is what I went through:

To Recap:

The car was in the shop due to my STUPID mistake.

I started installing it over a month ago and took the battery terminal off to be on the safe side. Completed the installation and started up the car and it started up and ran like a donkey. There was smoke all over the place and gas was pouring out of the tail pipes.
I gave the car to this mechanic friend of mine andhe kept it for a month and it took him about 30 hours worth of labor to figure out the problem. Here are the details:

When I installed the stereo, I thought the best place to put the ground wire was behind the stereo and I saw this hole and took a screw and very securely attached the wire to the back wall of the hole the stereo goes into not knowing that 3000GT's computer is located there. When I attached the battery terminal, the computer instantly got short circuited and that's what caused all the problems. The guy was able to fix the computer as there was not a major damage done to it. Thank the good lord for that!!

I reinstalled the CD/DVD player with 7" flat screen over the weekend and am absolutely loving it. I have even wired it to connect it to my iRivier mp3 player and have ran the wire all the way to the middle console since the cigarette lighter is located there. I will take pictures when i can and will post them here.

I wanted to share this with other owners here toavoid someone else repeat this mistake.

The only good thing that came out of this was that I got a good tuneup job, awesome plug wires

Let me know if you guys have any questions and thanks for all your input.

Paul