Alright, originally I had a 305 tbi in my 88 firebird (automatic trans). IV built a Carb 350 dropped it into place. Installed,my Holley fuel regulator with return. Installed a vacume advance dizzy.

IV hooked up all my grounds n such. BUT my starter won't engage, roll over or click. It simply does NOTHING! I have full power down at my starter. I tried jumping it from the pos. To the negative post i assume its called (the one with the purple wire) with a screwdriver but it dose not arc or spark. If I touch the positive and touch the starter body it arcs n sparks. I also tried hooking up two aligator clamps and a switch inbetween the positive and negative of the starter. STILL NOTHING! (and yes I had full power at both ends of the toggle when I did that)

Before I even installed this starter I tested it on the bench by jumping it and it worked fine!

All my lights stero windows attena ec. Is all working fine

Hoping somebody has an idea why my starter won't do anything?????

 

The purple wire is the start power wire. It puts battery voltage to the solenoid to engage it. When the solenoid engages, it pushes the Bendix to the flexplate. It also sends voltage to the starter motor via internal switch poles.

Sounds like your solenoid died somehow between the bench and the engine.

 

its the vats system messing with you there i had the same problem when i put a carb set up on my 305 (what i later scraped that engine). under the driver side kicker panel there should be a relay for the relay for the starter for the bypass. what your going to have to do is take the yellow and the green wire and splice it together.

 

VATS wouldn't keep the starter from operating when directly jumped.

 

He says he tried applying power direct to the solenoid terminal of starter and it made no effect so his problem at present is as five7kid stated above ;
a starter problem ; not the wiring ( inc relay ) to it
Once he gets the starter operational ; he will still have to do the relay bypass if he has not done it already as part of this swap wiring

 

Well turns out it was the solenoid. I pulled the starter bench ties Ted it again.... nothing, so i beat it with a hammer... lol it worked again rolling over twice then nothing. SO replaced the starter, turned the key over n all to my surprise it started!

So what is this all about a vats system?? I left my computer in I'm just gonna tuck the unused harness. My fuel pump is working with the turn of the key no re wiring and my starter still starts the engine with the key... so This VATS you mention has me confused

 

There are a couple of tech articles about VATS linked from the thirdgen.org homepage that you can read.

 

Sounds like a VATS issue to me.

Not a problem on '88 and older models because VATS was not used..

'89 and newer you will need to disable it.. as described in other posts.

 

When doing a swap most ( wrongly ) rip all the un-needed EFI wiring and VATS module out so they have to manually bypass the VATS operated starter relay
In your case, nothing has changed from stock except the computer is not running the engine anymore

Some don't rear the whole thread before posting
"turns out it was the solenoid.... replaced the starter, turned the key over n all to my surprise it started!"