i recently swapped in a new 355 in my 95 chevy k1500, its a nicely built 355 with a whipple supercharger, tbi, stock ecm and i tune on the stock ecm. anyway, when i pulled it im 100% sure that i never overstretched any wires or anything like that but when i put the motor in i did leave a ground strap off from the cab to the frame. it had these problems from the first time i put the key in after putting the new motor in.now i fixed the ground strap with in a few days of swapping the motor but none of the problems were solved. now before i ramble off my list of problems i should add that my radio and all electrical worked 100% flawlessly before the motor swap, except on cold mornings the radio would turn on but nothing but static in the speakers till the cab warmed up inside, i dont know *** was up with that but it barely gets cold here in Florida so i never thought a thing of it, now im thinking this may be a decent clue to someone with more knowledge then i to help figure out my problem. so heres the problem, my radio does not work, and my gear select indicator lights dont work, sometimes they(the gear select lights) do work but if they do they will work fine but will flash and flicker once i put the ac on full only. sometimes it may flicker as the truck bumps around, as if somehting is loose, but still this is only with the ac on full, otherwise it functions fine. if the gear select lights don't work,(like they have been the last week or so) the wipers wont work, nor will the ac. but when the gear select indicator lights work, the wipers and ac work. however, today(the gear select indicators have not been functioning) i noticed that if i turn the key on just short of all the way on, right before it lights the gauges and kicks the fuel pump on, just the gear select indicator will come on, but once i go all the way on the indicator lights are gone again. also, my fuse block shows no power to the trans fuse, nor do they show power to the illum fuse... but my interior lights work 100% perfect and my trans is shifiting and functioning fine, converter is locking and all. another thing i just thought of, when im driving, rarely, but it has happened, the truck will spit and sputter as the service engine light comes on and then within a few seconds of me coasting trying to regain some control of the stumbling engine, the engine light will go away and its running great again. the engine light will just come up as an ecm error code which from my tuning experience seems to the be the only code the ecm will throw that just goes away with absolutely no long term effects or memory of it. i know that its going into limp mode becasue i can tel how the truck drives in limp mode, its going into limp mode becasue i have an emulator in place of the chip, so my theory is that if the emulator looses power, its like pulling the chip out of the ecm, forcing it into limp mode... so iv got that somewhat figured out, but dont know why its doing it.

the radio plain doesn't work... ever.

my best guess is a grounding issue behind the dash?

thanks for any help in advance, thanks for even bothering to read all that boringness, im really desperate fro help here, its to much for me to figure out with so much on my mind and i think you guys could help me out.

 

I guess there is a 3rd gen that we did not know existed ???

 

are you trying to say you are not going to help becasue i dont own a third gen camaro? wiring is wiring, if you have the knowledge, you could probably help me.

 

that is not what I was saying you called me on it so I'll confess, I was poking fun at you I will read your post again and see what I don't know OK?

 

ok here is my lack of technical expertese, acording to your "book" the truck acts wierd "sometimes it may flicker as the truck bumps around" and the IGN switch issue "i noticed that if i turn the key on just short of all the way on" I would start with a "Known good Ground" like from the battery directly to the body with 10ga or better. then check your fusable links at the starter, '95 should have 3. tug on each one(hold the plastic joint to pull on) then IF the truck has a lot of miles maybe put in a new IGN switch. but more than likely it is a broken fusable link, dammaged in engine swap. let me know whatchu come up with

 

im about to swap back to the stock starter motor, i remember i had to change soemthing with the mini starter but dont remember what. i got the radio working by giving it a new power source right from the fuse block, instead of figuring out the real problem of why the radio harness had no power, but a good ground. it was getting late and i figured i may as well make the radio work before i have to put it back together to drive to school in the morning. i also had no batery to body ground, i added one yesterday and nothing changed. i think ill find the problem in the starter motor... i hope

thanks for the help

 

any luck?

 

Im going to have to agree with macer......sounds dead on like a very shoddy ground or a failed fusible link (pos).

By no ground to the battery, do you mean on the negative terminal? If you had no negative ground, then your truck never should have started..... Make sure that youre using some nice and thick wire for the negative ground, because youre looking at a LOT of amperage running through that while cranking. 6ga or smaller will more than likely melt. Have you checked for your 12v signals going into the computer? Its a good place to start. If no 12v, then keep going backwards on the schematic until you find 12v. I imagine it will run backwards from the ECM to fusebox to fusible links near starter to battery.

 

i dont know if i ever mentioned it on this forum but i ran a racing starter and it destroyed my flexlate so after having to get out and turn the crank over by hand untill i could get it to land on some remaining teath for the starter to catch for the last month or so i finally went ahead and pulled the trans back, put a new 168 tooth flexplate on and went back to the stock starter motor and found a ground that was supposed to be grounded to a trans bolt just hanging there, bolted that up, and moved my engine ground from the header bolt to the trans bolt and got the body ground on there good and when i put the key in everything worked awesome! only problem is that i cut the wire on my radio harness and ran it hot to the fuse block on the ignition power to get it working a while back when it wouldnt work which leaves me with no hot power to the radio so it wont save my presets and being that its a flip out touch screen head unit it acts funny, the screen stays out all the time. so i just gota wire it back the way it should be since the radio harness should have power now.

still no idea why my methanol injection dont work, but im still happy as hell, the truck starts right up and all electrical works. i can figure out the methanol injection in a day, either the map sensor is bad or the controller is fried. iv had nothing but trouble with that methanol injection, i dont know if id recomend a devils own kit or not, iv been through 2 controllers and a pump, they have taken care of me up untill now but i doubt they will again.

the ecm and service engine light issues are all caused by a map sensor high input code/ low vacuum. i think this is becasue i have been taking it to the strip lately and when i open up the cutouts and let it idle at a lower rpm it surges pretty hard anywere from 400-850rpms and the idle it pretty... well awesome, but im thinking the ecm doesnt like it and that may be my problem. but then again i could just need a new map sensor, the map sensor has been on there longer then iv owned the truck, could be stock for all i know. its funny how much i can change the idle on the truck lol, i can tune it to idle around 14.7:1 air fuel ratio and it lopes pretty much like any motor with some amount of overlap, or i can make it idle high at about 800rpms and make it idle as smooth as a stock truck, the problem is that if i tune it to idle at a good air fuel ratio it will go lean when it fully warmes up and it takes all day to fully warm up with a 160* t-stat and then it will only idle how i want it for so long before it starts to surge and then the air fuel goes all over. ultimately, the main problem is even if i can by some stroke of luck(80 pound injectors are tricky to get to idle right) to get it to idle at the propwer air fuel ratio, once i go to put it in gear it goes lean and wants to die. it seems the only way to get it right is make it run rich and let it surge, just the nature of the beast i supose. with open headers, and the idle set low idling a little on the rich side with not a lot of timing, it sounds flatout awesome. it seems iv gotten off track and im rambling now so ill stop, so anyway, thanks for the replies.

EDIT: my methanol controller and ecm run off of separate map sensors, the ecm uses the stock 1 bar, the methanol uses a 2 bar.