First off I'm not much of a mechanic, I have very little experience and this is the first time I really turned a wrench myself on the car. I had installed an alternator years ago on my 94 camaro, and watched some online tutorials so I was relatively sure I could do this repair myself.

Anyway I replaced the alternator last week with a new one from DMCH a few days ago because the car had been quitting and I kept on having to get it jumped by AAA. AAA took the voltage and determined that that the battery and alternator was bad. So I replaced the battery and alternator. Everything seemed fine once I had installed it and the car drove and started up fine once everything was charged back up. All the voltages and everything seem normal, I had them double checked by AAA since I don't have the right voltage meters.

The next day the car would not turn over. Not a dead battery I pretty sure because the starter would crank but the car would not turn over. I didn't want to flood the car so I left it alone for another day. Next day it starts right up after a little bit of trouble, but it sputtered to life and then smoothed out after about 30 seconds. I took it for a drive after letting it idle for about 5 minutes and it seemed all right, brought it back home, started it up 5 minutes later and it started up just fine, no sputtering this time.

So last night I took it on the freeway and did a few errands in it. It started up ok every time with no problems. My girlfriend and I then went on a little date to a restaurant and the car sat for about 2 hours while we ate. When we came back the car did what it did the first day after I installed the alternator, it would crank but it wouldn't turn over. After really giving it gas while trying to start it it came to life and the engine sputtered for a bit but finely calmed down after about a minute. I let it run for about 10 minutes and then decided to see if we could nurse it home.

Then when I got it up to around 50 or 60 mph and had it in 5 gear the rpm's started going crazy, it jumped way up and then way down and the car lurched quite a bit. I pulled over into a parking lot but left the car running. I drove it around the parking lot and I decided to nurse it home again but not get it up to too high of a speed.

I haven't done anything to it since and it is parked now. I would like to try to figure out what is going on myself as I am sick of taking it to a mechanic and want to learn more about how to work on the car myself. Any advice you guys have would be great. Thanks!