within the last week,,,,After driveing in the hot sun and my temp guage gets to about half and if i shut off the car and then try to restart it it will barley turn over once. But then if i leave it for a day or a good time like 8or so hrs it turns over perfect like theres nothing wrong.

I checked my volts and it looks like my alt. is chargeing when the car is warm (havent tryed testing it when the car was hot). I know its not the batt cause i tryed my brand new one from the saturn and it did the same thing that day. And as you know my volts guage has a mind of its own, so i cant go by what that says. I had my starter rebuilt about 3months ago but i suspect its getting too hot from my headers but ive had my headers sence last year and never had this problem.

any ideas???

im seriously thinking its my starter. taking it in to the guy who rebuilt it tomorrow.

 

What????

Be glad you don't live in Arizona or Texas or Florida or someplace like that that has the sun more than 45° off the horizon, and actually gets hot.

But seriously..... Sounds like you have a stock starter. They about all do that. It's really really weenie. If it turns out that it's defective (probably is) then get an aftermarket mini-starter. Don't screw around with a bunch of heat shields and solenoids, they're just a band-aid at best, and a complete waste of time more than likely. Proceed directly to the real solution without those detours.

 

Yeh, and it hasn't even been hot up here yet!
How is your timing set? If it is way advanced it will put more strain on the starter when it is hot.
Something you might look into would be an ignition cutout switch. This will let the engine crank without firing which will reduce the load on the starter. Simply turn the switch off, then use the key to get the starter rolling, then flip the switch back on, and fire it off....

 

I agree with RB!!!!

I had the same problem. I went through 2 or 3 remanufactured starters before I went with a new one. No problems since.

And out here in AZ it does get hot. 109* today. And I don't wanna hear any of that crap about a dry heat. Your oven is a dry heat, turn it up to 109* and crawl in. Let me know how it feels.

I was doing some data logging on winaldl a few weeks ago. The temp was 112* and the IAC temp on winaldl was reading 149*. That will kill some power output pretty quick.

 

However I will say that I have not had to deal with driving the Camaro or the T/A in the snow. I hear its real fun getting some traction on an F-body in the winter.

 

i had the exact same problem on my suburban. the stock starter would get heat soaked. i would splash water on the starter motor and the truck would fire up. i don't know why. the truck is completely stock. no headers. my guess is the windings in the starter are just too old.

 

extremely common problem for cars with tight fitting headers, Large factory starters are notoriously wimpy and due to their size they mount quite close to your headers which makes them excellent at absorbing the heat given off, as RB said a ministarter is the best solution to the problem and I'm sure 95% of the members on here with modded cars will attest to that as most of us have been through that. You don't nessicarily have to go aftermarket though, the LT1 ministarter works quite well for this purpose.

 

mmm mini lt1 eh,,,, mmm is this is a factory starter that works with my t5 spd and 3rd gen car?? Im not sure if i know what you mean?


to update you all i have took the starter back to the guy who recently rebuilt it for me and i just goten it back on and it seems to work well now. It hasnt given out on me yet...hard to say if it will again or not.
Ill know for sure in a week or so if it doesnt crap out on me im safe i think for a good while.

and to let you know about the heat we may not be as hot as you down there "all of the time" but here it still gets up to anywere from 80-100 in the direct sun on a really good day. add headers to that and a almost black paint job i dont think it would mater if i was here or in california the starter donesnt like it.

Thanks guys tho for your help.... im still going to look out for some options. But my other car is crying for aleast 400bucks worth of parts so the aftermarket stuff will have to wait on the iroc.