new motor won't crank
 

Ok, this isn't on my car. Its a buddy of mines that we've been working on. Its a forged 346 with a stock crank, Scat rods, and Mahle pistons. It has a TRex cam and a set of stage 2 5.7 heads.

We moved to battery to the back and have a power line going to the starter and to the fuse block. All I can get it to do is just slightly turn the motor. Mostly I'm getting a click when I turn the key. Starter is good cause I thought that may be it, so I swapped the stocker for a Powermaster that I had for my car. Battery is fine also, I swapped out the new one out of my Z06 to see if that would help and got the same result. Any Ideas??? I have a feeling that something may be draining the crap out of the power whenever I try to turn it over. I'm reading about 12.5 volts when the key is on the on position, and about 8 or 9 when I try to start it.

If you guys have any suggestions that would be great!

Thanks,
Tre

what is the voltage at the starter both when siting there and trying to start it

and if u can do a amp draw test... u prob have a bad connection somewhere

Check your grounds and ends on your cables, When I relocated my battery I didn't get one of the ends on the cable crimped and the car cranked really slow.

I'll check the voltage on Saturday, thanks for the help!

ttt.....this is my car and its getting aggrivating

Did you check connections and grounds?

you guys need to double check all grounds behind the engine.and the one from the battery.
can you guys spin the crank by hand ?

did u check p-v?

we can spin the crank by hand. We've been so busy that neither one of us has been able to work on it. I think Zach is going to mess with it on Wed. Will see if we can get it figured out, I really think its the ground. Right now its being grounded off the rear seatbelt bolt. I think we need to get it on the frame somewhere.

yea i grounded it to the rear seatbelt bolt, i also dont have a junction box yet, i have all 3 wires (1 from battery)(2 go to starter and other to fuse box) all bolted together through the terminals. the engine turns fine by hand. any input??

thats the exact way i have mine done (past 2 years) and its always cranked like stock. check your grounds for sure. what size power wire do you have? if its not atleast 2gauge or bigger.

on a side note get your battery "load checked" just because it has good voltage with no load on it doesn't mean its up to the challenge of this. i have a red top optima in mine.

like said above check the grounds....did you remove the entire stock battery harness up front when you moved it to the rear? if so do you still have a ground cable from the engine to the chassis?

JR

no i just tied the 3 wires together with a bolt/nut. yea its still got the old battery ground from the motor mount to the chassis.

Mine works fine grounded to the seat belt bolt.

i removed all the stock battery wiring. maybe its the ground that goes from the engine to chassis thats doing it. does anyone have a picture of this ground? also the battery is an optima yellow top

What gauge are your positive and negative cables?

everything is 2 gauge

Check the engine to chassis grounds.

Well I just got back from working on it some. We checked all the grounds, all seem to be making a good connection. I'm really starting to get lost on this one. Everything seems to be working fine. When we hit the ignition, I'm only losing about 1 volt, so it's not really killing the power to the starter like I thought. I took the Powermaster starter off and its connecting to the flywheel just fine and doesn't need shimming. Yet all I can get out of it is a click, or a slight turnover. My battery out of my Z06 has 850 amp cranking power, so I think that it would've turned it over better than the Yellow topthats 600 amp but it seems to be about the same. Any suggestions?? The motor is turning over just fine. The builder of it is a local shop (Honeycutt) they have a good reputation and do a good bit of LS1's. I