Electrical issue - power flickering, stalling, ecu/relays clicking

[donkeylips]

So I just put my car back together and it starts right up and idles no problem. It is drivable but when the engine is under load, all of the lights flicker, I hear lots of clicking, and the car will stall. But it will start right up again.

I'm not great with electrical. Bad ground? Something shorting? What should I check?
Has anybody experienced these exact symptoms? The battery terminals look good to me.

 

[JNR]

I'd check your ground(s) first and/or loose connectors (at the ECU let's say), if you messed around with something...Just go back in your head on what all you did and double check everything, like loose connectors or forgetting to tighten a ground, etc.

Normally a short will cause a fuse to blow, fwiw, so chances are it's probably not that.

 

[FlyingEagle]

Your MPI relay is tripping on and off, causing the engine to stall. One symptom of a bad ECU is this strange stalling/flickering.
As mentioned above, check grounds and such, but also look at that ECU as a major precaution.

 

[donkeylips]

Everything looks fine to me. I do have a spare ECU to try, but that wouldn't cause the lights to flicker would it?

And I'm thinking it shouldn't have anything to do with the battery, since the car starts right up just fine. I only have this problem when it's already running.

 

There is a fuse in the front left (as you sit in the car) of the engine compartment fuse box. It actually is bolted in, altough it doesn't look like it from above. That fuse can cause lots of little problems if it is blown.

 

[donkeylips]

Looks like it was nothing kind of like I expected.

I connected some jumper cables to the neg. battery terminal and attached them to a couple of strut tower nuts. The problem went away. So I just need to improve my ground right off of the battery. It's weird, because I didn't change anything when I swapped engines, and it was fine beforehand.

 

[JNR]

Just make sure the terminal is tight and no corrosion on the battery post and where you attach them, no paint or anything underneath it...obviously the cable should be in top condition, as well.