Starting fresh - Page 17

Topic: Starting fresh (Read 29461 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #240 – June 21, 2021, 10:34:51 AM

Looks really good for a rattle can job. A little wet sanding could bring it up a notch, but that's also a lot of work for a $100 paintjob. Glad to hear you're able to enjoy the car during the season.

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #241 – June 22, 2021, 04:49:27 PM

How has the self tuning been going?

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #242 – June 22, 2021, 09:23:19 PM

Quote from: Tbird232ci – on June 22, 2021, 04:49:27 PM

How has the self tuning been going?

It hasn't been too bad. A hiccup here and there but all in all not bad. I will eventually have it tuned by a pro when I get a little more serious with it, but for now I'm happy with it. I'm still on the original o2 sensor and coolant temp sensor that came with the kit which from what I'm hearing is a rarity.

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #243 – August 15, 2021, 10:44:25 PM

Haven't updated here in a while, but the car is running great! Has a small incident last week.. my 13+ year old starter decided to hang up and stay engaged and start a small fire. Hood was up and I was home luckily but in the scramble to get a wrench to undo the battery it kept rolling the engine over, melted the wire and all that fun stuff. And literally the only thing I had close by to put the fire out was a bottle of raspberry tea

mmmmm burnt wire and raspberry. I ordered a new sve starter and wire from lmr and am back up and going again.... with a hint of raspberry.

Had her at a couple shows and got to beat the snot out of it a few times all is good in my world.

I was going to take it to the track and see what she would do the week of the 4th of July, had the car loaded on the trailer and ready to roll and got rained out and haven't had a chance to get down there since. I need to buy some slicks. Seems every time they have a street tire event I've got something else going on.. or it's raining. Muncie only does a few street tire events and they're on Wednesdays.

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #244 – August 16, 2021, 08:42:53 AM

Bummer on the starter and glad you were able to get the fire out. Did the starter stick or the solenoid?

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #245 – August 16, 2021, 10:02:31 AM

I'm pretty sure it was the solenoid on the starter

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #246 – August 19, 2021, 04:32:45 PM

Glad you were home and did not loose the car or worse. I am going to apologize now for the long post on your thread but I feel its relative to your starter problem and may help others. If after reading you would prefer that I delete the post and start a thread I will completely understand.

Interesting that you had this problem as I had to replace the starter in my Mustang just last week. I thought the car was having a hot start issue due to the aggressive timing in the tune but I talked to a couple buddies and they got me off that cliff. Got back to basics and started checking all the battery cables (all 4 ga with crimped copper lugs that I built about 15+ years ago) by cutting the two layers of heat shrink off each connector. All the 12V+ cables checked good but one 12V- cable (battery to k-member/frame) was a little green so I replaced that cable. The 12V- cable from the k-member to the engine block was in good shape as I had replaced that cable about three years ago and it was worse. Happen to catch it doing other work that require me to remove it. I then moved to the red top Optima and being it was build in 2016 it was suspect but I was praying it was good as they run around $240 now...insane. I pulled it out of the car charged it with the battery tender (it also desulfates and tests the battery) while I was doing the cable work. Interesting thing here is it was maybe half charged and about 2 hours later was fully charged and had passed the battery test. Prior to this it would take two to three times that long to charge but tit was in the car with the 12V+ and 12V- cables connected to it. Side note, depending on weather I may not drive the car for a few weeks at a time so this is why I would have to charge it.

So now the cables are good and the battery is good...wrenches under the car and now the starter is coming out. Started thinking about it and this is the same starter I pulled from a 2001 V6 Mustang in the salvage yard back in 2003ish. It has been on four 5.0 based motors and I want to say been rebuilt twice. I said F it and bought a reman one from O'Reillys with a lifetime warranty. Battery wire connection was the same but the start wire connection went from a spade to a threaded connection so that got changed. I also opted to wrap the solenoid, the connections and about 18" of the wires with header wrap and stainless steel "zip ties" I had left over from another project a couple years ago. I think the starter was just mechanically worn out and causing some drag issues which got worse when hot as those tolerances opened up and got worse.

Dropped the car back on the ground and holy shiznit...it twisted off with vengeance. That was the sound I used to love about the gear reduction starters so big grin and very happy. Took it for a spin and got it up to temp and just pulled over and killed the motor to check hot start and had zero issues firing right back up. Volt gauge was back to where it used to be and I stress tested it with the Fosgate driven JL Audio 10's and no dip on the gauge.

Long story short I think I was headed your direction as the starter was draining the battery when it sat and on hot starts it would pull so much amperage the voltage would drop which causes all kinds of hell with the rest of the electrical system. I should have recognized what was going on and the old saying a little preventative maintenance goes along way was definitely validated.

Re: Starting fresh

Reply #247 – August 20, 2021, 12:18:32 PM

That's the beauty of building something I suppose, everything has a life span. My starter was bought when I put the old flowtech headers on it back in 07 or 08 and the stock starter physically wouldn't fit. So I bought this high torque mini starter off ebay for about $50, brand new. All was good with the world. I'm pleased it lasted this long it definitely didn't owe me anything.

But for the sake of it not happening again for another decade, do it right. Small things are often overlooked and could potentially cause bigger problems later on