let me start by saying that everything was fine with the cranking of the car prior to this. i replaced the injectors with Ford motorsport injectors, because i was having an idle problem. after getting it all back together, i prime the fuel pump 3 times to get pressure, then i crank and for about 3 seconds and everything electrical turns off... fan, gauges, dome light, door buzzer... everything. kind of like i unhooked the battery, i checked the connections at the battery and they are tight and clean. the positive wire was kind of hot though. so after being confused for a bit, i go to call it a night, and everything is back on, so i try to crank again, and only for a split second does it crank and everything electrical dies again, wait for a bit, comes back on, try again, everything dies again, soon as i crank, not when in run. dont know what could have caused this, only thing electrical that i had to unhook was the maf, tps, iac, iat, and injector clips. and all those are back intact.

by the way this is on an '88 iroc-z L98 car that is 100% stock except for k&n's, flowmaster, and now injectors.

 

First thing you did wrong was put Ford parts in a Chevy.

Kinda sounds like a bad ground. Possibly VATS related. May be wrong though, just a suggestion.

 

yea i thought i might be a bad ground too, but i didnt have this problem before, unless now that i think of it... there is a rod that connects from mount on the back of the alternator to the intake next to the thermostat, but i think that its only for support of the alternator, but i could be wrong, could that be a part that continues ground somewhere? i didnt put it back on yet because i cant find the nut that goes on one end.

and as for VATS... its an '88 car, so no vats.

trouble codes = none.

 

Cable getting hot maybe from extended cranking of the engine, short, or loose cable at starter,or loose battery to engine ground.
There are three grounds near the firwall - copper stranded strap to firewall, and wiring loom grounds behind each head, at least that what's on my motor.

 

might want to check the fusible links at the starter as well. i had one go bad and it caused similar issues.





a lot of us are running ford injectors in our set-ups. works quite well.

 

i fixed the problem.. turned out it was the cable that was "clamped" in the terminal was corroded/loose. cleaned it up and tightened it down, and it fires fine now. it was one of those cheapo autozone terminals, that i have gone through numerous times in the past.

oh and btw... replacing the injectors did not help for my rough running problem... im looking further into it.... im only getting 8-10 Hg of vacuum at idle and it rapidly bounces up and down between those values, but smooths out with higher rpm.... im going to have to start a new thread once i figure out what i need to ask, if i cannot find out through searching. Thanks for helping.

 

Glad you got it figured out!