Electronics and ignition cylinder question
Thread Starter
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 182
Likes: 6
From: Newburgh, Indiana
Electronics and ignition cylinder question hey guys, just a quick question for you all! I have an 89 firebird with an ls swap in it and am finishing up wiring but just some things that I can’t seem to figure out. When I went to turn on the ignition, I turned it to the RUN position and I didn’t hear the pump turn on and nothing lit up on the gauges. But when I rotated the key to the START position, all of my aftermarket gauges lit up and and the pump started running. I have the whole fuse/relay block for the main relay, fuel pump, and fuses for the standalone engine harness wired with a 12V battery and then used the thick pink wire that originally went to the distributor as the ignition 12V. Also, the ignition cylinder feels very mushy and spongy when I rotate it from one position to the next, so I replaced the cylinder and it feels the same way. Can anyone tell me if I have a wiring issue or also what could be causing the mushy ignition cylinder? Thanks in advance, Jeremy
TECH Fanatic
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 1,467
Likes: 265
From: Bossier City, Louisiana
It almost sounds like you have your PCM power wires mixed up and possibly confused with the starter solenoid wire. My PCM has two power wires:
1 - one wire that gets battery power all the time to retain learned parameter memory.
2 - the main PCM power wire that only gets power once the ignition key is in Run and Start.
Could your starter solenoid wire be what you accidentally picked as your main PCM power wire?
Mushy ignition key??? I have no idea but if power through the key corresponds correctly then I would not worry about it.
Rick
1 - one wire that gets battery power all the time to retain learned parameter memory.
2 - the main PCM power wire that only gets power once the ignition key is in Run and Start.
Could your starter solenoid wire be what you accidentally picked as your main PCM power wire?
Mushy ignition key??? I have no idea but if power through the key corresponds correctly then I would not worry about it.
Rick
