My engine is showing 12v? Block is hot, Not grounded....

[dsd1983]

Okay so last weekend I got my 455 put into my '79 Cutlass. I hooked up all my wiring and turned it over just to see if the starter was getting power, etc before I did the cam break in. Everything seemed fine. Today I went to do the cam break in and my car will not turn over. I am not sure why, thought I had it all hooked up right. I have noticed now that if I take my electrical connector put it on the negative side of the battery or a ground and touch the block when the key is in the on position, the block shows power to it. I know this should be the other way around where the block is the ground. Even my engine ground on the firewall shows hot. Any ideas why? I swore all this was hooked up right, I have looked all over my car to see if something was touching and cannot find anything. I have the pink wire hooked to the starter solenoid and the HEI is wired to the battery from the BAT terminal in the cap. The base plug on the distributor is plugged into the cap. This distributor was working fine before I did the rebuild. I even pulled the distributor out of the motor (left plug wires attached to engine) and got the same result.

Pink Wire is hooked to the "S" terminal on my starter, then the key is switched to on the power should go to the starter, for some reason though when I turn the key to ON it make the entire engine have 12v

Any one want to weigh in on this? Like I said, the block is hot, and it should be a ground....

Thanks

Doug

 

[Pontiac455]

Make sure there arent n e wires pinched between the transmission and the engine. If all wiring is good i would bet the solenoid is shorted to ground and its feeding through the starter to the block. un bolt the starter and see if the block has 12 volts. Check the starter as well.

 

[dsd1983]

Got it! I had my ground wire from the battery attached to the radiator support last week and it worked, when I was installing the radiator, support, shroud, etc. I moved the battery ground and bolted it to the driver side front fender where the angled bar bolts from the front of the car. That was not grounding. I moved it back to the spot i had it last week and it turns over. Thanks for the help!

 

[fleming442]

Heavy battery ground cable should be to the block or head. The starter draws more juice than anything else in your car.

 

[dsd1983]

Okay. So I gave this a go today...and well still no start. I have to say this seems a little wild to me at this point. I installed a 455 in a 69 cutlass about a month ago and it is on the street today and no issues. Today I swapped in a new battery and put a ground to the stud driver side head. I have three grounds on this engine now. All to clean surfaces. One from block to firewall, one from battery to block, and one from battery to radiator support, though I am pretty sure I can ditch the last one. Here is how my wiring is hooked up, this is where I may have an issue because I have put motors in other types of cars before and not had this kind of issue. I had this motor running on my test stand before I did the cam swap so I know it is a good motor, good HEI, good etc. This motor ran good on stand before the cam swap and the install in the '79 cutlass. As of now the car will turn over and only sometimes gets a spark because it popped back through the carb a little. The timing is set right, TDC, #1 spark plug, 530 position on HEI rotor. This thing should fire. Plenty of gas. Gas squirts from carb. So I am back to the wiring. See below of how I have it setup

Wiring---
Heavy Pink Wire to Starter Solenoid, this wire shows power, 12v+, only when key is in the start position
Heavy Orange Wire to Electric Fuel Pump and Tachometer, this wire is showing 12v+ power in the on position and the start position
Heavy Red Wire to Battery - Main power into car for headlights(which arent working) and dash lights and brake lights.
HEI "Bat" to Battery
HEI "Tach" to Green Tach Wire
Base of distributor has the three wire plug inserted into cap


Thanks for the insight!

Doug

 

[CWPottenger]

Is this a large cap HEI (coil in cap)?

You need to verify spark. Pull a plug wire and gap it to something metal w/ a screwdriver and see if spark. Sounds like fuel present so must be spark.

 

[dsd1983]

Yes coil in cap, last time around i pulled the number one plug and had my friend go to start car and saw no spark from #1 wire...there is some kind of spark going on since it has backfired thru the carb a couple times..

 

[CWPottenger]

Is the cap on correctly? I have in the past put the cap back on and not got it right and it only fired every couple time around. If it didn't spark I would look over the cap, rotor, coil button in top of cap. Make sure all good and making contact. Those coils do go bad and act weird. I also like to pull cap and watch rotor to make sure it is turning correctly( since you did change cam). Also make sure the connectors plugged into the module in dist on both sides.

 

[CWPottenger]

there is some kind of spark going on since it has backfired thru the carb a couple times..

Just also note: verify timing is not 180 out. I have made that mistake also and that is what it does is backfire.

 

[dsd1983]

I will look into it more tmw. i may pull the standard coil type distributor from my 69 cutlass and put it and the coil in and give it a try.

Just some background on the car. I bought this car in 2010 from craigslist. it had a chevy setup installed in it from a 1988 camaro. this car was a v6 car originally. i dont know why someone would do this. but anyway the car is orig from oklahoma and some how got here to Pa. none the less i got it. i have kept the 700r4 and driveshaft in place and used a transdapt converter to mount the olds455 to the 700r4. i know it is a stock 700r4, but i have ran them behind a 454 before and it is still in that car today. just dont dog it and run high RPM all the time and it lasts. the '79 cutlass motor is a 1976 from Delta 88 and has been modified with k&n air cleaner, 650 holley double pumper (manual secondary), C heads, edelbrock torker intake and a lunati camshaft 283/283 220/220 .451 .451 110 106 (i installed cam +4 degrees for the 8.5:1 comp). this cam works with stock stall and should kick some major butt with the 3.06 to 1 first gear in the 700r4. rear end is 7.5 stock with that i think are 2.73 gears. i attached some pics of the motor and the car. the tires on the car are some old truck tires i had 255/70/15 on some old camaro rims i had. wheel wells are stuffed. i am keeping the tires and going to a rim with less backspacing than the camaro wheels. and that is just wierd anyway to have camaro wheels on a cutty. i got some header flanges at a swap meet yrs ago for $10. i kept them and i have added 1 5/8 flexpipe to each one to make headers. this is a helluva lot cheaper than hookers or shortys. everything tucked in pretty easy and bent into place where needed

thanks for the help guys! just wanted to give you some background on the car~

i will be back tomorrow to let u know how these next set of tests go. when it gets up and going i will post a video

-Doug