Okay, so I swapped a 350 into my 89' rs. Sadly, I haven't been able to really drive it because for some reason whenever I hit my cooling fans on (I have to fix that by the way) with the ac switch the car almost wants to stall out. same with the headlights and a double whammy when I do both! I feel retarded driving around with my car cutting out haha. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know there's probably more details that I could give, but I had to switch shifts this week and my mind is kinda "eh". haha

 

have you checked your alt?

 

sounds like a charging system problem

 

Battery sees 12.2 ish without starting it. sees mid 13's while running. Alternator putting out 14.4ish.

 

Any ideas? I would really like to drive at night soon haha.

 

I suppose I have the tendency to come up with issues that seem to stump just about everyone. darn.

 

Personally I have no clue about electronics but I had some issues with 3rd gen elecronics in the last few days and learned some.

Things you could look for are rather obvious but elimination will be your best friend.

Unplug fan and see if same still happens, if it does, no longer look at the fan for your issues.
Same goes for the lights.

Sounds too obious and most likey you tried it already.

If unplugging lights and fan both make no difference you could have a problem in either cable tree or fuse box.

 

Check your voltage at the battery and alternator while the car is running, when you turn the lights and fan on individually, and with them both on. You're looking for a drop in voltage at either one. You shouldn't see much of a drop at either end. If you see a big drop at the alternator, its not keeping up with the demand. You probably need a new/more powerful alternator. If the drop is at the battery, check the wiring to the battery.

Though this might be easier - you could take the car to your local Autozone/Advance/PepBoys/etc to have the alternator and battery tested.

Another thing to check is your grounds on the fan, headlights, and the engine block-to-frame ground strap.

On your engine swap, did you swap to carb, TPI, TBI? Did you reinstall the entire A/C system? Dual fans or single fan?

 

im having the same problem but my car doesnt stall when i plug my fans back in my tach stops working. try running your fan on a new aftermarket adjustable temp switch. sounds like you make have a crossed wire somewhere causeing the distributor to kick out causing it to stall.

 

I actually just took my 89' RS and bumped it up to a 350 tbi. Where does all the wiring from the hot side of the starter go off to?

 

The large hot wire on the starter goes to the battery. There should be 2 smaller ones, IIRC. One goes to the little power distribution block and the other to the alternator. Then there is the smaller ignition wire.

Do the radiator fans come on normally when the engine is hot and if they do, does it cause the same problem?

 

It never has(single fan unit), as mentioned in my original post, I haven't gotten around to fixing it since there's been so much more that needed to be done since I got it.

 

okay, so I thought there was a thing or two that i could add to this. I was going through the wires tonight and I found a loose bolting for all my grounds behind the motor ( since I did a little consolitation when the motor was out, you know, lengthening some grounds moving them a bit). I don't know if I loosened it recently, as I said this last week has been a bit of a blur, or not. Furthermore, I just kinda came to the conclusion that my intake (where I bolted all my grounds to) isn't cast iron like i thought it was. Could it be that those two things right there could be a part of my problem?

 

The loose grounds on the back of your engine could be a partial part of your problem. Your intake not being cast Iron wont matter as mine is aluminum and have 2 grounds attached to it. as long as the ground contacts are clean it wont mater if its aluminum or cast iron. Id also inspect your harness for any corroded,broken and pinched wires. are all your wires at your distrobution block tight?

 

Okay, so Basically.. I just went through every wire that I even breathed on during the swap. I went through the wiring that I moved when I added the Ford solenoid and added a bigger body ground to the battery. I moved all my rear firewall grounds grounds off of the intake and back to the block where they originally went. I went through every crimp that I made. I crimped on new connector fittings for some that were hurting. And, so far she's been running great. I have the timing retarded a little bit right now so I don't get pulled over again haha. The wire that comes off the positive seems to be hurt but not enough to keep the car from runnning like crap. I don't know if it would make a difference on my voltmeter in dash reading but we'll see. I did however check many times the voltage to the battery with my DVM and it always reads upper 13's at the terminals so I'm not worried about that. Thanks for all the ideas.