Hard Starting Hot Big Block

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charger426

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I'm out of ideas on what could be going on with my Dart and not wanting to start.

1/0 Copper welding wire from the trunk mounted battery to a 300amp circuit breaker the up to the front of the car on the driver side fender. I also have a 1/0 cable up to the front for ground as well as a 1' long 2ga wire from the battery negative to a grounded to metal spot on the wheel well. I have a 1/0 copper welding cable from the negative line I ran to the driver side cylinder head.

What I've tried:

Bypassed the circuit breaker from the battery to the front (nut and bolted the wire together, no difference,
Put the power wire to the starter and from the battery on the same post up front, no change
New MSD Starter, no change,
New starter relay, no change
Added another ground wire from the starter mounting stud to the fire wall, no change.

It drops to 2-3v when cranking per my Edelbrock Pro-Flo. Base timing is set at 12 degrees per what edelbrock calls for with their EFI system


440 stroked to 512 10.5:1 compression hydraulic tappit cam, Edelbrock Pro-Flo EFI, intank Tanks-Inc Pump, MSD 6AL-2 ignition block
 
Try bolting the neg cable under a bell housing bolt. Starter bolts to BH, not the block.
 
Bewy said:
What does hard to start mean?
It cranks but does not fire?
Slow cranking?
Etc.
Click to expand...
Cranks like a dead battery drops to 6-8v and is very slow to crank and does not start. Battery is a new XS power with 1100 cranking amps. Have used a jump box and tried a different battery and no change.
 
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charger426 said:
I'm out of ideas on what could be going on with my Dart and not wanting to start.

1/0 Copper welding wire from the trunk mounted battery to a 300amp circuit breaker the up to the front of the car on the driver side fender. I also have a 1/0 cable up to the front for ground as well as a 1' long 2ga wire from the battery negative to a grounded to metal spot on the wheel well. I have a 1/0 copper welding cable from the negative line I ran to the driver side cylinder head.

What I've tried:

Bypassed the circuit breaker from the battery to the front (nut and bolted the wire together, no difference,
Put the power wire to the starter and from the battery on the same post up front, no change
New MSD Starter, no change,
New starter relay, no change
Added another ground wire from the starter mounting stud to the fire wall, no change.

It drops to 2-3v when cranking per my Edelbrock Pro-Flo. Base timing is set at 12 degrees per what edelbrock calls for with their EFI system


440 stroked to 512 10.5:1 compression hydraulic tappit cam, Edelbrock Pro-Flo EFI, intank Tanks-Inc Pump, MSD 6AL-2 ignition block
Click to expand...
Sounds like a classic case of bad connections. Did you make the terminal ends of the wires going from the battery to the engine compartment? Did you have someone do a load test on the battery? I would temporarily put the battery at the front and wire directly to the starter & relay with OE style wires to see if that works. If so, start working backward to find the culprit.
 
Ricks70Duster340 said:
Sounds like a classic case of bad connections. Did you make the terminal ends of the wires going from the battery to the engine compartment? Did you have someone do a load test on the battery? I would temporarily put the battery at the front and wire directly to the starter & relay with OE style wires to see if that works. If so, start working backward to find the culprit.
Click to expand...
100% agree its acting like a bad connection but everything has been made new with copper wire now. I fought this a few weeks back and found out some of the wires I had used before were CCA vs Copper. Changing over to copper helped for a couple weeks but then last night she acted up again. I've used a jump box up front to try and remove connection points and no changes. Battery load tested great and I've tried another battery from my Ram and not change.

Super frustrating that when it's cold aka first fire of the day it cranks over no problem. Just fired it up this morning to reset the timing after retarding it last night (I actually reset it dead on before starting so one thing went my way) and it cranks nice and quick with minimum drop. The wiring going to the starter is in a heat sleeve so in theory that shouldn't be cooking and I hug it to the block. The starter was hot yesterday when I was stuck but I had been getting shitty slow cranks so I'm sure that heated it up some. It just seems like something isn't happy when it gets hot...

Plan for today is to put a Ford starter in the trunk, use the 1/0 run I have up to the front from the ford relay directly to the starter and then just have a 2ga back from the alternator to the battery. If that doesn't help things then maybe it's time to just burn it down!
 
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Run the battery neg to the block or bell. Leave the 2ga between the block and chassis. Which XS Power battery?
 
Ring end gap to tight?
Tight thrust bearing ?
Tight starter to flywheel alignment?

Loosen the starter and move it away from the flywheel . Sometimes those starters have a large hole on one end


Defective starter?
 
Oldmanmopar said:
Ring end gap to tight?
Tight thrust bearing ?
Tight starter to flywheel alignment?

Loosen the starter and move it away from the flywheel . Sometimes those starters have a large hole on one end


Defective starter?
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Runs great once fired up, temps get to 210 and fall to 190-210 seeming regardless of the situation I've put it in so far. Have about 100-150 miles on the motor

First starter was a generic mini for a 93 Dakota then moved to the MSD DynaForce. No changes to how it cranked hot or cold.
 
"Cranks like a dead battery drops to 6-8v and is very slow to crank and does not start." Voltage drop like that still points to bad connections. You changed the starters, same issue. You tried a jumpbox up front but where did you attach the cables to? Directly to the starter & bellhousing?
 
Ricks70Duster340 said:
"Cranks like a dead battery drops to 6-8v and is very slow to crank and does not start." Voltage drop like that still points to bad connections. You changed the starters, same issue. You tried a jumpbox up front but where did you attach the cables to? Directly to the starter & bellhousing?
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To the Posts on the front fender. Tried to go right to the starter when I had it on the lift but couldn't get the clamps in there without touching the block. I have post relocations on the starter. The solid brass or copper ones like Mancini sells. Bought it from the guy that was making them on ForBBodies only.
 
Check the how many foot lbs it takes to turn the motor. Here are some numbers for short block only no plugs or valve gear. Stock engine and rings 20 -30 ft lbs race engine 15-20 ft lbs oval track engine with low tension rings 10 ft lbs. Remember to seat the thrust bearing front to back. or the engine will spin tight. My son builds a lot of engines of all types . Those are the numbers for V-8 gas, I just called him. Just finished a 505 BB it was 17 lbs to turn it. 10 sec full size 92 dodge ram .
 
EDIT.........AFTER doing what Steve said above (OldmanMopar)

The FIRST thing you must do is to determine whether the 1...battery is defective, whether the 2...starter is drawing over-amps and pulling the battery down, or whether it is 3...simply voltage drop.

EG Voltage drop measurements will not tell you anything if EITHER of the other conditions exist. IE if the starter is defective and dragging, etc, it will exhibit system voltage drop, as well as low battery voltage


You need to get/ borrow a legit carbon pile load tester, like one of these.

You can test both starter draw as well as get an idea of battery capacity. "Generally" you start with a fully charged battery. You must have the problem acting up, in other words engine hot, then crank, or try to crank the engine for 10 seconds while reading the voltmeter on the tester.

Next you crank in resistance until the voltmeter pulls down and reads the same as the starter pull read. At that point the ammeter on the instrument will tell you the starter draw.

Conversely, you can load test the battery and also get an idea of how it's doing. Again, you MUST start with the battery fully charged.

carbonpile.jpg
 
As Oldmanmopar pointed out some starters have a large hole on the top. The starter could be too close to the ring gear. Usually there's a bushing for that upper 7/16 stud. Is that in there? BTW stick or auto?
 
66Valiant528 said:
As Oldmanmopar pointed out some starters have a large hole on the top. The starter could be too close to the ring gear. Usually there's a bushing for that upper 7/16 stud. Is that in there? BTW stick or auto?
Click to expand...
Auto. So I've used two different starters and no difference in cranking.
 
Oldmanmopar said:
Check the how many foot lbs it takes to turn the motor. Here are some numbers for short block only no plugs or valve gear. Stock engine and rings 20 -30 ft lbs race engine 15-20 ft lbs oval track engine with low tension rings 10 ft lbs. Remember to seat the thrust bearing front to back. or the engine will spin tight. My son builds a lot of engines of all types . Those are the numbers for V-8 gas, I just called him. Just finished a 505 BB it was 17 lbs to turn it. 10 sec full size 92 dodge ram .
Click to expand...
I don't have a dial style torque wrench so not sure I would do a drag test to be honest...
 
67Dart273 said:
EDIT.........AFTER doing what Steve said above (OldmanMopar)

The FIRST thing you must do is to determine whether the 1...battery is defective, whether the 2...starter is drawing over-amps and pulling the battery down, or whether it is 3...simply voltage drop.

EG Voltage drop measurements will not tell you anything if EITHER of the other conditions exist. IE if the starter is defective and dragging, etc, it will exhibit system voltage drop, as well as low battery voltage


You need to get/ borrow a legit carbon pile load tester, like one of these.

You can test both starter draw as well as get an idea of battery capacity. "Generally" you start with a fully charged battery. You must have the problem acting up, in other words engine hot, then crank, or try to crank the engine for 10 seconds while reading the voltmeter on the tester.

Next you crank in resistance until the voltmeter pulls down and reads the same as the starter pull read. At that point the ammeter on the instrument will tell you the starter draw.

Conversely, you can load test the battery and also get an idea of how it's doing. Again, you MUST start with the battery fully charged.

View attachment 1716306038
Click to expand...
So the tester I have is the old school resistant type tester (where you hold a switch on the bottom for 10 seconds and watch the gauge to see where it falls). I also used a larger group size battery for testing from my 04 Ram SRT10 and saw no difference. I don't have an ammeter, I have a volt gauge (all new wiring on this whole car. With a volt meter I get 12.8 at the battery and 12.7 up at the front. 1 wire power master 130 amp alternator and I'm seeing 13.3ish on the volt meter when driving (dial style autometer gauge plus driving so not like I'm able to check down the tenth of an amp in that situation).
 
Just to update this thread as people are engaged (thank you all for ideas and thoughts). I'm going through and adding the ford starter relay as mentioned early and noticed the riv-nut I used as my ground in the trunk was loose! So while I was grounding up front by the motor I'm sure the "chassis" ground I had in the back was subpar. I have a new riv-nut tool since the time I installed that one and was able to get it nice and tight. Going to wrap up the ford starter relay now.
 
Just wrapped up the ford starter and she fired right up... going to let it get up to temp while I clean up and see what it does hot...

Update: Same damn **** when it got hot. 0 change with the ford starter relay....
 
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Tried another starter (joys of hoarding parts!). I believe this was an OLD Mopar performance starter. It has offset wire hookup from the factory. I'm seeing a drop on my display to about 8v (happens so fast it's hard to see) on the first crank but it's turning over wayyyy better than it did with the MSD starter. Makes me wonder if the MSD was bad or maybe the aftermarket terminal relocations. Ether way I'm going to keep on testing with this starter as it will crank about 2-3 times even when hot and start up.
 
From your initial description, it sounds like the 1/0 cables do not go directly to the starter terminal and block/bell.

The chassis ground connections should be through zinc washers with no paint insulating under them; just a little grease. Don't try grounding just through the edge of the hole in the sheet metal.
 
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