Blowing relays

[pumm3l]

For some reason we keep blowing relays in kristen's camaro. It probably happens like once every 6 mos. We pull the power from her Aux which I belive is the same place the alt. is drawing it's power. Anyone know why the relay keeps blowing out? (we also have her bottle heater pulling power from that same source and that one also blows out time to time) We've been through about 3 relays so far within the past year I know it's not normal because I haven't replaced not one on my car since I installed it which is way over a year.

[AZ3.8Camaro]

My car does the same thing.
I am thinking about going to a larger relay or 2 relays in parallel or something.
I can't figure out why it does that.

[1DangerousV6]

check and re-check ALL of the wiring..there may be a ground out of place somewhere

[AZ3.8Camaro]

If there was, it would take less than a few months to go out. I would think.

[BLLDOGG]

Originally posted by AZ3.8Camaro:
My car does the same thing.
I am thinking about going to a larger relay or 2 relays in parallel or something.
I can't figure out why it does that.

if you want things to run properly and to not have future problems, you need to find why its blowing and fix instead of trying to fix it with a larger relay or 2 in parallel. would you put in a 30A fuse in the place of a 15A fuse and call it good? if you know better, no.

[AZ3.8Camaro]

Originally posted by BLLDOGG:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by AZ3.8Camaro:
My car does the same thing.
I am thinking about going to a larger relay or 2 relays in parallel or something.
I can't figure out why it does that.

if you want things to run properly and to not have future problems, you need to find why its blowing and fix instead of trying to fix it with a larger relay or 2 in parallel. would you put in a 30A fuse in the place of a 15A fuse and call it good? if you know better, no. </font>[/QUOTE]If I put a 30 amp fuse in place of the 15amp and it worked fine I would. Especially if the circuit was modified at all from stock. I think they mostly fry because they are kind of cheapy relays.

[99davenport]

i would slap a amp probe on the circut turn everything on and find out for sure. It wouldn't be a good day if you have a short somewhere and end up blowing other parts of the circuit before the relay would blow.

[BLLDOGG]

if they want to let the smoke out, then they can. we warned them

[99davenport]

Originally posted by BLLDOGG:
if they want to let the smoke out, then they can. we warned them

God i hate that magic smoke

[CAMAROWIDBASS]

how thick is the wire you talk about? if your running a bottle warmer i assume it has to be no less than 12 awg at least.

[AZ3.8Camaro]

They don't smoke, or pop or anything magical, they drip some kind of corrosion looking crap out the bottom and die.
I have tried sealing it off better, in case moisture was causing it.. No cigar.

[99davenport]

Originally posted by AZ3.8Camaro:
They don't smoke, or pop or anything magical, they drip some kind of corrosion looking crap out the bottom and die.
I have tried sealing it off better, in case moisture was causing it.. No cigar.

Have you ever seen a PCM blow? it lets out a lil smoke. Its better your relay to blow then your PCM. Im not saying if you put a bigger relay to handle more amps, you will blow other parts of your circuit. I was just saying check the circuit,(to see what kind of resistance, wires and voltage the circuit can handle) then if it can all handle 30 amps then go for it. Just trying to help you from what would be possible to blow other parts of the circuit w/ more amps flowing. My suggestion would be to run your bottle heater and extras through a seperate fuse.

[AZ3.8Camaro]

I don't have any accessories like that.
Only the nitrous is off that relay.
Its an isolated circuit.

[99davenport]

well if the circuit is isolated putting a bigger amp relay wouldn't hurt. Just make sure you have the right size wires to handle the heat from the currentflow. But if you are still blowing relays I would have to say its a short somewhere where it is grounding out. I'd still say slap an amp probe on there.

[AZ3.8Camaro]

Yeah if there was evidence of something getting hot, or blowing up, I would dig into it more.
But it just looks like the relays are crapping out. Maybe just a higher quality relay would work. hmm...