ok, the car has been sitting for awhile because the previous owner couldnt not get it running. im new to the tpi motors. had one before but never really worked intensivly on it. im skilled with ls motors. done cam/heads, intakes, headers etc. but on these third gens im a newb. im eager to get this car running.. ok so heres the problem.


the car had a blown head gasket so they removed the heads, replaced the gasket ported and polished the heads, and put it back together. after that they never got it running again. i have a strong feeling that they didnt adjust the rockers, and didnt drop in the distributor with the motor at top dead center. so those are two things im going to be doing this weekend. along with changing the plugs, and wires. now i put a battery in the car and tried turning it over with no luck. everything works in the car, but the motor dosnt seem to do anything or even try. like its not getting any juice. the ac compressor clicks when i turn the key. and you can kinda hear some clicking in the motor somewhere but very faint and hard to tell from where. other then that the motor dosnt turn, and the pulleys dont even seem to try to move.

what do you guys think the problem can be? what can be keeping the motor from getting juice?

thanks in advance for all help!

 

if you hear "1" click after every time you turn the key, you probably need a new starter.

 

If the rockers were overtightened, the lifters may have collapsed as well.

 

but the clicking is coming from the ac compressor. you still think its bad starter? i can actually see the little ac thing move.
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and i take it thats really bad?

 

anyone else?

 

I had that problem once with my starter, problem wasnt the starter, it was the fact that I just wasnt getting enough juice to the solenoid.

Theres a purple wire running down the motor to front and then back to the starter (at least thats how it was on my TBI). I took that wire, shaved off some insulation, and hot wired it to the battery. Fired right up.

I just wired in a new start button.

Why do you say they didnt adjust the rockers?

 

i talked to the guys who did the work. both my friends. they said they just put the rockers on and that was it. they didnt do any adjusting.

 

do you guys think a bad coil can be causing these problems? it seems like the motor aint gettin no power. i tested the started and they said it was good. also there are freakin lots of wires going to the starter. i thought there were only suppose to be two. theres the big one, a lil one. and one red, and three orange i beleive. they all need to be connected or atleast the orange ones i think for the inside of the car, and alarm to start working. with just the big wire and little wire the car dosnt do anything inside like windows, locks etc.

i kno there is some bad wireing but it used to run wired up the way it is. im just wondering what went wrong. i think it probably got messed up when they tried wiring up a msd 6a box and couldnt do it.

 

sounds like you got a car thats a little over your head....

Its not the coil. The little wire is for the solenoid, big one is starter power, three orange are power wires for something else.

If your starter is good, then your not getting full juice to the solenoid.

 

You could have burned out a fusible link. If I were you, I would get out a test light, and check to see if you are even getting power to the starter solenoid.

 

ok. cool! im going to look into that next. do you think i could get a wire connect it to the positive and then straight to the starter solinoid? would that work?