What should I do about an engine that will start Fine when under 160 But has slow crank over and acts as if battery is dead at anything over 160 degrees on the gauge. High compression 390 FE
clean and tighten all grounds. make sure you have a good ground from battery to engine to frame to body
If "new" parts weren't sometimes bad, they wouldn't have to waranty them... If it's not a connection, recheck the parts! If the hot lead or ground strap is old, replace it out of general principles.
[ QUOTE ] ...has slow crank over and acts as if battery is dead at anything over 160 degrees on the gauge. [/ QUOTE ] With a SBC, sometimes the starter/solenoid is the culprit...I know Fords are different, but that's something to think about... R-
I've found on my engines that just a few degrees of retarded timing will work wonders on an engine that starts hard hot...get the car hot, then shut it off. Back off the distributor a little, then try to start. Keep doing this until it starts better while hot. Done this several times to cars that ran great cold...ended up that I had the timing too far advanced.
[ QUOTE ] What should I do about an engine that will start Fine when under 160 But has slow crank over and acts as if battery is dead at anything over 160 degrees on the gauge. High compression 390 FE [/ QUOTE ] Wow... That sounds exactly like my 390! Did you know they also leak oil? Seriously though, have you cleaned up all your connections lately? - especially that starter cable? LOL, The other day I noticed when I start mine, I saw this huge ass spark jump to ground itself on the inner wheel well... That thing was jumping at least ten inches! The starter's hot post has the infamous green gunk and is surely causing hellacious resistance. I am going to cut that wire back and expose some fresh copper for it. Anyone know if Lowe's had some good wire brushes? Other thing might be your choke? Where I am, the weather is changing and I had to adjust mine accordingly. (I tried anyways) I hope you find out for both of us. Grounding seems logical because I seem to rememeber reading something about hotter wire having greater impedence or resistance - don't quote me on that!
I fought the same battle years ago on a fresh truck. Someone talked me into moving the battery ground cable from a welded stud on the frame to the engine block. The problem disappeared....a ground problem.
If you sort out all the ground and connection issues, and still have problems, you can consider a cutout switch for your ignition. Just put a switch in the coil hot lead, turn off the power and then crank the starter. The starter will not be struggling against the timing, and after it gets spinning, just flip the switch and it will fire right up. A little awkward, but a sure fire way to help the problem. You may not want to retard the timing as much as needed for the starter to operate well, that may make it run more sluggish feeling. The main problem is that with heat the resistance goes up in the electrics, causing less ppower availble to crank, while at the same time the engine has higher pressures to crank against. Less force and higher load causes the hard starting.
Yeh she still needs a couple more degrees of timing to stop the detination she is getting above 4500,Under load. We are replacing all the grounds and power cables with 1/0 and put dual Batteries in her. I will post back when we have it solved.
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