Thread: dead car

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One day I was driving home, tuned into driveway(dirt) and car cut off.. I tried to jump it off but nothing.. The next day I jumped it off and it cranked but very slowly.. Since then I put a new battery and msd box in it.. I am not getting fire out of the distributor.. I know the inside has spark but nothing going to plug wires.. Anyone know what causes this? The car is still turning over but really slow on a full charge battery

sounds like you have two problems to fix .. one the slow hard cranking .. two the lack of fire .. fix the slow hard cranking first .. unhook the hot wire feeding the distributor and see if it spins over any easier ..that should rule out something amiss in the timing .. see if you can turn the engine by hand .. making sure it is not seizing up on you .. then about all that is left is a dragging starter .. as far as the firing i would suspect a rotor button first ...

I'd start with cleaning both ends of both battery cables. Make sure the negative has a tight connection to bare metal on the engine and that the positive connection at the starter is clean and tight. Dirty cables almost always show up in poor charging of the battery causing slow crank and reduced power to the ignition system.

Do this before you start replacing parts.

Originally Posted by glennsexton

I'd start with cleaning both ends of both battery cables. Make sure the negative has a tight connection to bare metal on the engine and that the positive connection at the starter is clean and tight. Dirty cables almost always show up in poor charging of the battery causing slow crank and reduced power to the ignition system.

Do this before you start replacing parts.

Glenn just gave you a $100 tip with that gem! That could very well be all that's wrong! And most important, welcome to the forum. Glad you're here, and hope that you'll hang in to solve your problem and feed back what you did to tame the beast, and then stick around once it's running right again.

Glad to be part of the group.. Looks like I will be learning a good bit here.. Ready to get her back running, I miss hearing the cammed engine, lol

The first thing I think of when electrical problems arise, is the ground straps. Grind down to bare metal and install new straps. Don't remove the old ones, just add new ones. A car cannot have too many ground straps.

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Gotta agree with the resident guru.

Sounds like ground.

I put new cables, terminal ends, battery, new mini starter, new rotor cap and the clear distributor covers.. While putting the the coil in the cap, I noticed it was melted where the wires come out.. I don't understand what caused this, hopefully I found the problem.. The car does spin over really fast now..

thanks for the follow up - - - have you cranked it yet?

Em

No, it will not fire, I am thinking its this burnt coil causing the problem but idk.. I put the starter upside down to clear the headers.. The car turns over extremely fast, just need spark

The coil got her going, it now backfires every few seconds when idling.. The car also just stays running when it is started, the key does nothing, wonder if I hooked something wrong from the msd box.. It is push button start but the key had to be on for it to work before.. The key also shut it off before

so what kind of car is this?


92 Camaro???


Push button start????


We aren't grtting all the details??


Some of those years you had to disconnect a wire while setting timing to 10*(IIRC) with different battery hook up, electronics changed-hard to tell where your at until we know a few more things

The car is built 350, it is push button, pics are in my profile

Originally Posted by 92camaro

The car is built 350, it is push button, pics are in my profile

Whose push button start system did you use? Is it a multiple relay system, some type of programmable controller based system or did you just replace the "START" function on the key with a momentary PB? Depending on the system you may possibly have a relay that failed that's keeping the key from shutting it off.

Do you have any of the ecm features hooked up? or is the car totally rewired to take advantage of a simple carb system vs efi? What are you using to supply fuel to engine? Pressure regulator set at what pressure??