One thing I hate worse than messing with gear oil is trying to diagnose electrical problems... Here's the scoop...
Battery has been tested good at Autozone. It's a Optima redtop. While I was building the engine the battery sat for close to 5 months. I figured it would definitely be bad, but alas...
It will hold a charge. If I were to drive this car every day I doubt I'd notice the problem, however I drive it maybe once a week and if it sits that long it'll kill the battery dead- as in total radio memory loss. I've done some volt meter/pull fuse tests and come up with the following...
Applying power to battery I get a 100ma draw. I can hear a relay engage (I believe in the BCM) and stay on until power is removed. I pulled all fuses w/ no change in draw except the courtesy fuse. When pulling that fuse amps drop to 50ma. While the courtesy fuse is pulled and when I apply power I hear the relay engage, but turn off as quickly as it came on. The amperage jumps for a brief moment and then settles back down to 50ma after the relay disengages. I have checked this car in the pitch of black to make sure it isn't a light staying on including the glove box lights and ash try lights to no avail.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

I had a similar problem with a red top, but it ended up just being a bad battery that once charged would test fine. It just seemed to lose charge sitting on it's own.

Before that I had a problem when someone wired in my MSD ignition and ran it to constant 12v side of the relay panel. Needless to say, my MSD would always be hot and you could hear the thing making a high pitch sound in the garage.

 

This is one of the reasons I won't go with an optima. The car sits for extended periods of time, with the alarm and radio drawing on the battery. I finally wised up and put a battery tender on it this year.

 

Yeah in doing some research I've read other people complaining the red tops are notorious to dying if not charged after a week or two. I had one prior to this and it wouldn't go dead unless the car wasn't driven for a few weeks and it lasted 5 years. If this car was driven every day I would never notice it. Having this optima is great for the track because I like to keep the fans on in the staging lanes and have killed the battery from time to time...
I would like to find another LT1 f-body for control experiment sake and test it to see how much current is being drawn before going out and buying another battery.

How long would it sit before dying?

 

It depended. If I parked it in the shop, 2 days (concrete) If I parked it at home on the asphalt it would take about 5. It got so bad that it would drain faster than the alternator would charge it and it would sometimes go dead after I would stop somewhere for lunch and came back to the car. My friend and I bought ours at the same time. His is still running fine, but he rarely drives the car.

I still have the thing in my garage and that was about 2 years ago that I had the problem.

 

So was this drain happening when you had the MSD wired hot all the time? I'm not quite understanding... sorry. Did you have it tested with a battery tester where a load was put on it?

 

No MSD after that.

Battery would test fine at autozone for load, then 2-5 days later be dead once I parked the car. It then got worse as time went on, but would always take and hold a charge. Still probably could, just wouldn't use it for anything other than to move a car around.

We had the same problem and you could just watch the voltage on the battery dropping while it sat connected. I replaced the battery with a conventional and never had the problem again.

 

I hear a ton of complaints abot the red tops, but the one in my Chevelle sits for weeks and starts just fine time after time.

If you've eliminated all the possibilities you can think of, try another battery and see if the problem persists - it may be a faulty battery.

 

Thanks for the help yous guys. I'll swap batteries from the beater and see what happens.

 

My friend's works fine and we bought ours on the same day. Mine just hated my car apparently.

 

One of the things I've read is the red tops don't like any kind of draw whatsoever that modern cars like to feed on with alarms and clocks etc...

The thing is I've read that anything under 50MA is acceptable whereas I'm at 80 to 100 so I dunno. If it's a draw I haven't the foggiest. It'd be nice to get another LT1 to look at.

 

Mine was fine as well. However it sat for months uncharged. I'm wondering if that had a little something to do with it. Just seems a little too suspect.

 

Yeah, same issue here. I stored the car over the winter and had the MSD sucking the life out of it. After that it was never the same even after removing the MSD system.

Meh, live and learn.

 

Did two tests. One on a my beater which is a Geo Prizm and a friend's Ford Explorer. The Geo has an 80MA draw and the Exploder is at 40. It jumps to 80 for a second and then goes back down to 40. Wondering if that's the BCM engaging and then disengaging. Wondering if the f-body BCM is supposed to do the same thing...

 

As long as your battery is hooked up and you let it sit for long periods of time, it is going to eventually run down. The only way to deal with it is to get a battery maintainer. Either plug it in and hook to terminals, or hook it up underhood and merely plug it in when you are not driving it much.