How much voltage would it take to fry a cars electrical system?

Question

My goal is to stop the engine. I don't care if the cars computer is ruined.

This is all an experiment.

Answer 1

well a car runs on 12 volts so if you hook up 24 it should work nicely

Answer 2

You can only fry a critical component or two before you've broken the circuit and have no more current. 12 Volts is more than enough for that. Just hook the power cable to the negative battery terminal and the ground cable to the positive battery terminal. Having the current run backwards will blow at least one diode in a critical component.

By the way: shorting the positive terminal to the negative terminal will destroy your battery rather dramatically, but with all of the current running through the short, there will be no current running through the rest of car - i.e. the rest of the car's circuitry will be undamaged by any current. However, exploding a battery in your engine compartment can't be too good for the engine - at a minimum, battery acid will be splattered all through the engine compartment and will eat away at your components. Of course, standing anywhere near the car when you short circuit the battery won't be very good for you either.

Answer 3

Uhh.... this is why the put fuses all over the place. Simply putting voltage into a car won't do it, unless you put +1000 Volts and jump the gap in the fuses.

If you wanted to fry the car your best bet would be applying small voltages to specific parts. Maybe the alternator, or the solenoid, or the onboard computer, or some other vital part.

The key is to apply the voltage to the right place, otherwise you not going to do anything at all.

Answer 4

On a carburated car with electronic ignition no amount of electricity pumped in through the battery terminals will stop the car. The ignition and fuel delivery is independent of the rest of the electrical system. On a fuel injected or mechanical ignition vehicle you need to get 30 amps running through the ignition system to blow the fuse. So measure the resistance and multiply by 30 and that should be the voltage you're looking for.

Answer 5

i once seen an experiment supervised by Siemens and they put the same amount of voltage that is exerted by lightening and the car still worked but that was down to the tyres still been on the car. remove the tyres and considering that the cars electronics are mostly d.c. powered a good heavy jolt of 3 phase 400 volts should ruin the car.

Answer 6

The voltage in the car already is enough to make the wires smoke. You want fireworks...hook the positive straight to the negative! The engine won't run after that, believe me.
You know that you are liable for the damage, right?

Answer 7

It depends on where you apply the high voltage.

If you push 115 V, 3 phase, 400 Hz to your fuse box, this would sure to do massive damage to the car and you! But put 10,000 volts with low amperage to the spark plug and the care will run just fine.

Answer 8

actually, the car itself could fry it. on mythbusters, they replaced a fuse with a bullet. the bullet itself shot out, and probably if you applied a higher voltage and replaced a fuse with say a nail, something that would not break, maybe it could actually fry the circutry. wait, a fusebox is not hooked up to a engine....

scratch that

if you hooked up a transformer to the battery to double the voltage, it may work.

Answer 9

You mean amperage...voltage is potential..amperage is current. stopping computer will stop the engine

Answer 10

serach for urself in the web.