my car wont turn over when its hot, i believe it is because the starter is getting to hot and drawing to much amperage for the battery. i have stock headers, is it the starter or the heat causing this?

I got a little heat shield for my selinoid and that problem is cured

call your local parts dealers and see if they have a heat shield for your selinoid

if it cranks really slow that could be a result of over advanced timing

yea sounds like hot start problems

we wraped a friends starter with refletix (its a silver insulation) and held it on with safty wire, no more hot start problems (and this was with true headers)

I believe that i have 16* initial timing, it does crank slow but then the starter smokes a little sometimes. i think that the kid that owned it before toasted one before because it looks pretty new. I was thinking heat shield too I'll probably use some thin galvanized sheet metal. and figure out how to space away from the starter.

i've also run into problems with there being an oil leak at the rear of the engine and oil running onto the starter brushes and making bad contact when it gets hot. so you have an oil sending unit leaking or anything else on the back of the block?

Yes....

More the starter, than the heat.

The starters that come on our cars are a watered-down version of an already poor, inadequate design from the Stone Age. They BARELY turn the motor over when everything is PERFECT, but then when the motor is hot and the cyls fire reliably before the piston reaches TDC, the starter doesn't have enough nads to keep pushing it past that. So you get the lovely rrrtt... rrrrtt...... rrrrrrrttt..... rrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttt.......... {fades off into oblivion} effect.

Throw that stupid direct-drive Delco caveman thing away, and put something modern on it, with gear reduction. ANY of the aftermarket mini-starters are good; most of them are just a Nippondenso or Hitachi starter mounted on a block of aluminum, so it hardly matters what "brand" you buy, the only difference between them is which one of the 2 motors they use and who made the block of aluminum. Or, the LT1 starter, which Delco finally stepped into the 20th century with, is a similar design and also a MASSIVE improvement.

Screw a bunch of heat shields, external relays, and all that other monkeying around. Those are barely even band-aids, let alone "cures". Go directly to the root of the problem (crappy starter), rip it out, and fix it.

I used to have such a problem with this that I eventually hooked up a wire with an eye connector to the selinoid and threaded it up to the battery. I put a end cap on it and let it lay there.

Whenever I got heat soak in the summer, and the car would not start, I would just pop the hood, turn the key to run, and touch that wire to the positive battery terminal. Would start right up.

Be careful if you have a stick.

While I fully agree with Sofa as to the real route of the problem, here is what I did.
On my car because of the big, near race camshaft in the motor, I run the timing locked out 36deg full time. So the initial spark timing is 36deg BTDC.

When the motor is hot, the starter will crank over slow to start.

I wrapped the starter with starter heat wrap and added the Moroso starter shield. I also wired in a Ford starter solenoid and mounted it in the passenger shock tower, bypassing the GM solenoid with a bridge connection between the "S" terminal and the battery cable terminal on the GM starter solenoid.

Then I wired in a 15amp rated switch onto the B+ 12 volt power wire to the GM HEI distributor (big red/pink wire). This switch interrupts the power to the distributor, disabling the spark. When the motor is hot I crank the starter over with the spark off (disabled) and then throw the switch to activate the spark and it fires right up with authority, every time.
No more problems with burned out GM starter motors and/or slow/labouring hot start.,

To see if your starter is good, when the engine is good and hot, go under the hood and disconnect the 12V power wire plug from the GM HEI distributor cap and then spin the starter over. If the starter will spin the engine over when hot, at a decent speed with the spark disabled then the starter itself is probably still good.
If the GM starter labours when hot with the spark power disabled, then it and/or the GM starter solenoid needs to be replaced with a new one.
You can replace it with a good quality HD stock starter and HD solenoid. or as Sofa advised, get a cool gear reduction starter.
Make sure the starter mounting support brace is on the back of the starter.
Do not operate the starter without the starter mounting brace.

My electrical and heat shield mods with benefit both types of starters under a hot start condition regardless, making your life a lot happier for many years of use, especially if you like to run a lot of initial spark timing. make sure the battery cables are both in good condition and the terminal ends are clean and tight and the battery is good and fully charged.

Mount the 15 amp rated SPST spark interrupt switch on or under the dash, somewhere you won't hit it while driving. The switch and wiring and Ford V8 starter solenoid can be found in any auto parts store that sells auto/RV electrical accessories. About $10 for the switch and another $10 for the Ford starter solenoid.

thanks for the input guys, I'll probably go with the lt1 stater (junk yard) to begin with and a spark interrupter (great anti theft device) if that doesn't do it I'll go from there.

i almost forgot, we were eating starters in our 454, got tired of it, and put a Mean Green starter on it.......never a bit of problems again

http://www.mean-green.com/

Thats a cool starter.

yea they are nice, there is cheaper ones in jegs and summit.... but i know the mean greens are good

Look closely, and note that it's a Nippondenso motor.

how can i tell the difference between the Nippondenso and the hitachi and which is better?
how much does that one cost?

A typical Nippondenso-based unit...

http://store.summitracing.com/largei...sum-820048.jpg

A typical Hitachi one...

http://store.summitracing.com/largei...csi-100p_w.jpg

I don't think there's a whole lot of difference, as far as one or the other being "better".... they're both so much better than the stupid archaic relic our cars got, that it hardly matters whether one of them is 8 times better, and the other is only 6.5 times better. What's really more important, is if it fits your particular setup better than the other, and which particular supplier's warranty and service you trust, and how much it costs.

I used to have that problem years ago. Had to get a friend to get under the car with a jack or long broom handle and bang on the starter while I'm cranking it to get it to fire up.

Swapped the starter with a good quality replacement and never had a problem since.

That's a different issue from heat; but yeah, YET ANOTHER problem the Neanderthal kind is prone to. I've had several of them do that to me over the course of the years. Which, likewise, can be COMPLETELY avoided by putting something sensible in instead of the ancient Babylonian artifact.

hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

boy we all have been there done that

mxcrazed's started is cranking very slowly when my car gets hot and i try to strat the car it wont even crank. i mean it doesnt even budge even though my gauge is telling me i have plenty of amperage to start the car.
Heat shield or heavy duty starter?

Would a starter bench test at napa be able to figure out if its the starter or the heat imposed upon the starter?

Did you read the post AT ALL? What did you learn from it, as being the ROOT CAUSE of the problems with the knuckle-walker fossil we got stuck with in our cars?

How hot is NAPA's bench?

how bad is it for me to pop start this MFer when the starter wont do the job?

Not at all. Nothing wrong with that.

Why not just change out the starter and put it behind you?

I'm not gonna touch the car until I get a job, know of any jobs in eastern MA I am trained in HVAC and I'm pretty handy with a wrench.

I don't even drive the car my jeep is me DD I just need to know what needs to be done to this thing before I do register it, I have had it for over a year I welded up the floors swapped the 305 th700 (tranny was toast) for the rebuilt 355 and t5 got new seats put new bushings in the drivers door new handle on the passenger door. It came with new front and rear pads, shoes, rotors drums and lines new edlebrock 1407 and performer rpm the 355(roller block) t5 and tpi setup and fresh paint and I paid $400 otherwise I wouldn't even own the car. I sold the tpi for gasket money then built up the 355 with everything off the lg4 bought the clutch setup shifter shifter boot and what not and now the poor car sits because I cant find a JOB and I have been looking no one is hiring the economy isn't there. thats why I don't just go buy a starter wish I was at liberty to do that truth is I'm about to sell this thing to pay my bills and it hurts thinking I may have to do that but at least I bought low and can sell a little higher right? Unfortunately that is