new to site with a tech problem
 

have a 03 neon 2.0 16valve with manual tran. the problem is i noticed i have a battery light on and also seems that i lost any tourqe for climbing hill on highway. have to downshift to 3rd to maintain up to 45/50 mph. 4th or 5th gear just drops in speed and motor starts to wanna chug.

ANY HELP?

Are you thinking your two problems are related? I would take them seperately and diagnoise. Your battery light could be an alternator actually, if not then you got to troubleshoot and hope its not a voltage regulator if so you will be replaceing the PCM. Lack of power? check air filter, plugs, maybe you have some crappy fuel. Are the any other lights on besides battery light?

yes- check engine light and checked on it and its a o2 sensor thats been on for less then a month. also its been sluggish when accelerating while in 5th gear. and chugs abit if not revving high when upping in gears when driving. was told o2 sensor is not a major thing, but will replace next paycheck for budget.

Do you have the exact code from the check engine light?

cant remember. was off of an Autozone scanner. just remember it said sensor cat below eff.

Your lack of power issue could be a number of things (as I stated above) personaly I would go with what I know is wrong first. Fix the reason why the battery light is on first. Low voltage issues can trigger all kinds of issues to include computer glitches. Then go with the reason why the check engine light is on and fix that. It probably just needs a sensor but...it could be other things also if I had the exact code I could research it for you. Good luck, maybe others here have other ideas.

found this
 

wire comes from starter into harness. dont know where it all goes. big wire looks like a cable wire. has big wire in center with another wire surrounding it, but where it was spliced has only one wire.

so that wire i found out is a fusible link. does that mean it needs a fuse housing between the wires?

p 0420--- upstream catallyctic converter effiency below threshold.

that can be fixed how? i run 91 octane. upgrade my plug wires and selinoid? going to change plugs this weekend. any suggestions on plugs?