What he said^^^^^^ If it runs fine on the alt, w/ no battery, then it has to be in the battery circuit.
did you try swapping the battery? you said if you shut off the battery kill it idles fine. try a different battery.
Hemirod quote "With the battery on, you can turn on the head lights on and it will kill the engine." Leave the key on and look for smoke..?
I,m thinking alternator lead to starter solenoid is grounding but only during output,so it would be robbing voltage from dist. Disconnect alt at bat+(not the back of alt)
I can't think of anything that has been already thought of... You made sure you had good connects for pos and grounds...I can gar'n'tee it's something simple....pain in the butt my simple. Good luck and lets us know when you fix it and what it was.
Try unhooking the tach like two others have said it will surely be worth a try that is the only thing you haven't tried. On some gm cars which is what most wiring co;s use for a diagram if your battery voltage gets too low and you turn on the lights or the turn signals it will kill the car. Hope this helps RED
If it acts like an electrical/ignition problem but you can't find anything wrong, as a last resort check for a manifold leak.
perhaps the lights and ignition are getting 12V from the same connection on one switch. the lights take the voltage away from the ignition. wire the ignition off something else, preferably by itself.
I just finished for the night. Can't say I got anywhere. This is what I did tonight. I started with making all new battery cables. Pulled the started and made sure nothing was arcing there. Cleaned the grounds for the battery at the frame (two grounds from battery, one to the transmission and the other to the frame). At this point I started it. Still the same thing. I tried taking loose the tac. No change. Ran the engine in the dark and saw no sparks anywhere. It maybe something to do with the fuel pressure because the engine is loading up real bad. It is running a bit rough. I will get a new regulator tomorrow and see if it helps. I also need to get a diode to run to the ballast. I know that will help the engine start better, but wouldnt fix whatever is going on. I think that there is no magic bullet on this one. I think it maybe a combination to things going on. As a recap, I have not gotten anywhere yet. I know some of you have said to try other things and I am going to try them. I will keep you posted on what happens, it is just I can't take anymore disappointments tonight. I am really pissed off that I cant figure this out! <O</O Just for those who may not know what it is doing right this second is:<O</O The engine will start, but you have to keep the RPMs up or it will die. Once it is idling, you can turn on the lights and it will kill the motor. You can get the engine running then turn off the battery kill switch (that only kills the positive lead on the battery) and then turn on the lights and the engine will not die. I did notice that when you kill the battery switch the tac will jump like it has no ground until you turn the lights on, then is goes to normal. Thanks<O</O <O</O
Assuming that you have an electrical problem you need to isolate the circuit that is giving problem and then narrow it down to the component, wire or whatever is giving the problem. You get power from two places, alternator and battery. Disconnect the alternator and run the engine to see if it is contributing to the problem. You have not said anything about checking voltage or current draw, do you have a multimeter? If so hook it up to the distributor and monitor the voltage, this can tell you a lot and probably prove or disprove that you have an electrical problem.
Early on I did disconnect the alternator and it made no difference, but I should try it again. I am using the Joe Hunt Hi-Performance ElectronicDistributor. I have run a jumper strait from the battery to the ignition and it made no difference. What I don't get is that it runs fine when the battery is disconnected.<O</O
I have checked the voltage at the distributor. At the ballast it is 14 volts on the side going in. I can't remember what it was on the other side, but I did check with Joe Hunt and it was where it needed to be. I am leaning more toward that I am having a non electric issue, but because its running right one way and not the other because I disconnect a battery makes me lean toward some electric issue.<O</O
When the car dies what happens to the voltage at the distributor. If it is correct than it is not an ignition problem. When you turn off the battery switch with the engine running you are running off the alternator. Since we don't know what is wired to and how the ignition switch is hooked up it is hard to tell what the problem might be in that wiring. When it dies pull a plug and see if it is wet. As someone else said you may have a vacuum leak that in the manifold somewhere. A leak can get worse as the engine heats up. Have you looked at the distributor cap to see if there is any tracking. Moisture in the cap can cause many different problems. Also look at the center carbon contact that the rotor touched. Some of your later problem descriptions, have to run it at higher rpm after starting leans toward a fuel problem but the initial problem descriptions lean toward electrical. At this point I think I would go to a temporary electrical and fuel system, like you were going to run the engine on a test stand and see what it does. If it runs okay then start hooking things back up one at a time until you encounter a problem. Really don't know what else to tell you to try. Good luck in solving your problem.
Taking the night off. Regulator will be here tomorrow. I have a friend coming to help too. Once again thanks to all for your help. Wade
do you have a fuse for the lights? if so pull it out and see if your problem goes away....if i'm remembering correctly you said, turn your light on it dies, unplug battery turn lights on it idles.... if your problem is in the lighting circuit somewhere it should go away if you pull the fuse.. heck you could start pulling all fuses one at a time, all you need to run is a hot wire to the distributor, i cant remember if you had an electric fuel pump or not, but if its an electrical problem it surley will go away if you pull the fuse to the circuit the problem belongs to..
I know you're getting slammed with suggestions, and this wouldn't effect the light/battery thing, but when you put new plugs in did you gap them to the length required for that HEI and not stock?
Taking that suggestion a step further I would run the car with a meter on the power input to the distributor and watch for changes (revving, turning off battery switch, or when it dies). This should help answer a few possibilities. Then you can move towards checking the same at the ignition switch and so on. FWIW I have seen a bad battery cause engines to die at idle and create several electrical gremlins.
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