ok i have an 86 iroc, just put my 350 in it hooked up the started on what i thought was the right way. there are 4 wires. 3 red and one purple. judgeing from my 83 the purple, and two of the red ones were at the positive stud on the starter. i hooked up power went inside and i had nothing. no dome light no power locks nothing. turned the key to the ON position i have power to everything and the starter turns over. turn the key back to lock and no power anymore. i switched some of the red wires but all i got was constant power all the time, didnt matter where the key was and no starter. i was told it could be the ignition relay in the column? so short from taking the column apart i am at a loss. any ideas? thanks

 

The starter on our cars has 3 terminals. It doesn't have a ground terminal because it grounds through the engine block and thirdgens only use 2 of those 3 terminals. Basically, that purple wire goes to the S terminal while the other terminal acts as a B+ for starter and also a junction box for other wires. Fix your wiring and report in.

 

ok so your saying that purple wire is the starter ignition wire? and the rest should be on the positive post? now the only reason i did not try that is because my 83z has the purple wire on the positive post or B+ as you said. But i will give it a shot tomorrow, Thank you for the help.

 

ok well i put the purple wire to the starter and all the rest to the positive..everything is on before i turn the key, starter turns over in the correct spot but again there is no off position and when i tried to use the window the choke light came on when pressing the switch and off when not. so i dont know what to do except get it running and driveable and take it somewhere

 

ok after about 4 hours of wire tracing and testing different wires this is what i found. the previous owner had some pos remote start in the car...wierd considering it was originaly a manual, and that pos was a whole mess of different wires, removed it. still nothing. so i checked the fuse box there was a wire that ran from the gauges fues to the ACC fuse...checked on my other car it didnt have one so i cut it and now everything works the way it should.