Starting motor on stand wiring help

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nick455440

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Figured this or the small block section may be best. Trying to start a small block (340) with electronic distributor and internally resisted coil on a run stand and can’t get spark. Wondering if anyone had a diagram or walk through in how to start a motor out of the car. Primarily electrical hook up, coil/distributor/bat etc.. have don’t this before but had been YEARS, any and all info is appreciated, thanks
 
Just pretend it's a car and wire it up.
 
If it were points here's how i do it. battery hot to starter, then a jumper to the hot side of the coil from battery hot. Negative battery cable to block, either head or manifold bolt hole. distributor grounds to block, and wire from distributor goes to negative side of coil. rusty is right, if electronic you will need more, and with points you may want a resistor, but i have ran 'em without... the points will burn up if ran too long without resistor. keep in mind with the setup i mentioned, I am running off battery sometimes with a 10 amp charge, no alternator and underhood wiring, this is just to fire an engine up. if you are building an engine run stand you may want to run a charging system wired like the car like RRR is saying.
 
Yes, this will be just a one time, start it to break it in before install. It’s electronic distributor, resisted coil. Would hooking it up, neg battery to block, pos batt to starter, wire from small post on starter to tap POS battery post to engage starter/start, then pos battery to Pos terminal on coil, black distributor wire to grond/block, colored wire to neg coil post... or will this set up only work for points?
 
If you run the back distributor wire to ground then how will it tell the coil to make a spark?
Where is your ECU getting power from, you don’t have any in the above plan.
Wire it like a car and have whatever grounds your parts go to the block or neg batt terminal.
 
distributer grounds to the block, the wire on the distributor for points only goes to the negative side of the coil. On electronic there is a two wire connector that ties in with the ecu wire harness etc. I know the ecu has to be grounded so run a jumper wire from that to the block. on the car it isa grounded through the bolts, but I actually run a jumper wire from my ecu lower bolt to the back of the right cylinder head.

this might help...page 17 is the wiring diagram for MP electronic distributor. https://wawii.com/m37/manuals/MoPar Electronic Ignition - elecignconv.pdf
 
nick455440 said:
Yes, this will be just a one time, start it to break it in before install. It’s electronic distributor, resisted coil. Would hooking it up, neg battery to block, pos batt to starter, wire from small post on starter to tap POS battery post to engage starter/start, then pos battery to Pos terminal on coil, black distributor wire to grond/block, colored wire to neg coil post... or will this set up only work for points?
Click to expand...
Breakerless dist MUST have a control box. "For me" the easiest is a GM HEI although you can use a Mopar ECU Rest of your thinking is OK

What is minimum electrical required to start my car?

If you want to try a GM module, here is the diagram:

4pin-jpg-jpg.jpg


NOTE:

Notice the blue "ground" symbol on one of the mounting holes. Look at the back of the module. There is a plastic locating tit you have to cut/ file off so it "lays" flat and you have to mount it flat on something (flat sheet of aluminum) so it has some "heat sink." DO NOT try to run it "in air" you need something for a "sink."

NOTICE the way the distributor is hooked up, showing the "bare" terminal on the dist. connector. This changes the timing if wrong.

I run my car with an HEI, and I also made an "emergency" module, with an HEI module in a box, and a coil. All you need is green clip to ground, yellow to 12V, hook up coil wire to distributor, and off you go

hwlcfa-jpg.jpg


I WOULD NOT DO THIS JUST YET. You can easily introduce MORE TROUBLE especially since you are inexperienced. I WOULD MAKE some checks of your existing system FIRST

ONE EXAMPLE is "if you have" a bad distributor/ distributor pickup. In that case, wiring up an HEI will not do a damn thing except waste your time and cause more confusion.




 
Alternatives

1...Wire up a Mopar ECU

2...Buy one of those Skip White style import/ chineseozafied "ready to run" "all in one" distributors. They are breakerless with the module IN the dist. You hook up power and the coil and go

3...Find, buy, steal, borrow a breaker points dist
 
I used a Chinese ready to run on my engine stand.. 50 bucks off ebay. One wire positive side of coil, one to negative side.
 
Its an original 65 slant six valiant I have built the 340 for, few years ago I did the GM ingnition and GM coil conversion on the /6 and had been running it with that for the last few years. Recently I had tried to hook up the 340 the same way but could not get spark. Ended up using just the ingnition unit and a resisted accel coil, wired it up like the above diagram and got spark, may try to break it in tomorrow weather permitting, thanks all for the info
 
nick455440 said:
Figured this or the small block section may be best. Trying to start a small block (340) with electronic distributor and internally resisted coil on a run stand and can’t get spark. Wondering if anyone had a diagram or walk through in how to start a motor out of the car. Primarily electrical hook up, coil/distributor/bat etc.. have don’t this before but had been YEARS, any and all info is appreciated, thanks
Click to expand...

Drop in a points distributor, then it's just one hot wire to the coil and done.

I use the points distributor on my run stand all the time. They are easier too to preset the timing to 10° BTC by watching just when the points break open to fire the plugs.
 
Well I mean points is easy you can set an engine on a tire on the ground and fire it a la Uncle Tony firing that junkyard slant he put in the Miata...why recreate the wheel wiring up electronic UNLESS you plan on having a permanent engine running stand like Nicks garage dyno setup, then I can see taking the time to wire up an igniton system...points you need what two battey cables and oine hot wire to the coil? and a remote starter switch? speaking of which Uncle Tony had a video on hot wiring also...:)
 
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