Hello all...

My car started having erratic starting troubles, where sometimes I'd get in and hit the button and there would just be a single click with no starter whine and certainly no rumbling engine. After a few tries locking/unlocking/and pressing the start button it would eventually fire up. Well, when I put the car on the lift to figure things out, I found the culprit.

My headers melted the plastic that surrounds one of the terminals on the starter solenoid (located on the starter just behind the headers for anyone who doesn't know) in place, so the connection was incredibly loose.

To fix this, I came up with a solution that is fairly common for souped up GM cars but you guys will surely think it will damn me to hell...I used a FORD part! I mounted a heavy duty Ford solenoid to the firewall, away from the heat, and re-routed all the necessary wiring away from the stock solenoid.

This worked like a charm for getting the car to start, but now I'm having charging issues. I got the infamous "service charging system" message, and my voltage dropped all the way into the 9.x's before I shut it off and called it a night.

All my connections are good, the battery is a new Optima yellow top, and the alternator is about 2000 miles old. Any ideas on where to start trying to figure this out? Thanks.

 

Don't you have a wire that goes from the alternator to the started solenoid? Maybe it is hooked to the wrong spot on the remote solenoid.

 

yes there is such a wire and I considered that...there are only 2 posts on the new solenoid, "to battery" and "to starter." The alternator wire is currently hooked on the post to the starter. Now that I think about it, it may have gone on the "to battery" post and that kinda makes more sense.

 

It won't charge the battery if it is on the starter side. The good news is that you have a yellow top Optima. I would take and charge the battery with a charger or you may be buying another alternator. The alternator is made to maintain the battery, not recharge a low or dead battery. We make about 110M car batteries a year including Optima and most of our customers sell alternators as well and I learned about the charging from them.

 

awesome, ill check the wiring and see if i can fix it tomorrow. thanks

 

Your right about it being an old GM trick. I've done on more than one GM car but your the first I've heard of doing on a C6. Good luck and let us know how it works out.

 

The solenoid is the electrical center of the car. Battery power, alternator, starter power, connections to the fuse box and so on, all meet at the solenoid.

 

so should all the connections except the one that goes to the starter motor itself go to the "to battery" side of the solenoid?

 

Essentially that is the fact. The starter side of the solenoid should be a seperate terminal part of the solenoid is a large hard-wired connection. I don't have a good closeup of the connections but don't mix up the battery main ground which attaches directly to the engine block, right next to the starter. All others will go to the battery solenoid connection with the exception of the wire that tells the solenoid to engage.

 

I've done this 3 times on different older GM vehicles. Works like a charm, but I have had to replace the Ford solenoid on one occasion.

If I remember correctly, you use a large battery cable from the Ford solenoid down to the main connection on the Chevy starter. Then you add a jumper (made out of 10 or 12 gage wire) from the main terminal on the Starter over to the "S" terminal on the old Chevy solenoid.

Good luck,
Glenn

 

I've been using the Ford solenoid trick for years on my Oldsmobiles (until I invested in a gear reduction starter, that solved the hot start problems) and you are right Glenhl, you have to jump out the S and main terminals down on the starter. If you look at the Summit kit you'll see a little bracket that does this.

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...=KeywordSearch

 

Cool. That's a great kit and an excellent price. Next time I'm ordering that kit from Summit. Thanks for the link.

 

yep, and i was wondering why you would have to mess with the 's" terminal on the old starter? cant you just run to the other main post on the starter from the ford one? if you run it the other way you are still using the old starter soleniod arent you? I was thinking the idea was to eliminate the old starter relay? maybe I'm thinking backwards here

 

That is the way we wired our race car, the only connection on the starter side is the cable go goes to the starter, altenator wire goes on the battery side.

 

Yes, you still have to use the old solenoid in the starter because it's not only an electrical solenoid, it's also a mechanical one that operates the bendix that engages the starter pinion gear to the engines ring gear. The reason for the remote Ford Solenoid is the main problem on the old GM cars is that the starter mounted solenoid got so hot that it made the primary circuit on the solenoid pull so much current that it burned out the ignition switch (at least that was my experience). It also pulled so much current that it dropped the voltage at the solenoid causing it to not operate correctly.

 

And that is why I would never run uncoated headers.

50,000 miles on these, two cross country trips, several trips to the drag strip, full throttle pulls to over 200 miles an hour,
AND NOTHING HAS EVER MELTED...



I think moving stuff away from the headers is a band-aid fix; if they are putting out that much heat, it will be a matter of time before something else melts... Spark plug wire, Oxygen sensor wire, engine harness by the power steering bracket, etc... There is a very good reason why these cars come from the factory with heat shields around the factory exhaust manifolds

 

talk about coincidences

take a look at this thread

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-z...post1572466733

looks like my problem starts with the headers - not the fans

Cheers

John

 

Do you have any pics?? Do you also need a diode?? I heard that you need one so the computer doesn't get messed up or am I wrong