Car Problems.........

[Barn$nake]

Hey Rich,
Sorry to hear you had trouble on the
ride home. No BLUE car should be down on such a nice day.
As to ideas: Here goes.
When you moved the battery to the trunk did you ground it to
the frame or to the engine block? If you used the frame did
you use some ground straps from the frame to the block?
Ground problems can drive you batty!
I have zero experience with the optima battery, but charge it
and load test it if you have the equipment. I'm going to read your post again and think on it some more. Take care.
Ed Paz

[Blas]

I don't believe you'll find the problem at the MSD box: Reason; because the entire car goes dead...(lights - horn -etc - no connection to MSD)

As I mentioned earlier the ignition switch is a good idea because it can shut down the car, But can it shut off you lights and horn? - If not - go back to the battery and grounds ideas.

When it dies again, while it's dead, gently put a jumper cable from the "-" battery terminal to a good ground and see if that circumvents the problem...if not...

I would loose the Optima Battery...(only because SO many people have had problems with them)

The MSD has an internal fuse I believe...

18 volts??? This points to a battery issue in my mind...Full charge on an Optima is 14.8 volts...

Check this out: www.vdcelectronics.com/optima/Optima-type_NL.pdf