[Firebob]

So it seems to be happening again. Heat soak from the headers after running for just a short time. It's happened a couple of times now so I figure I either buy another new starter or have mine rebuilt. Thought I might give one of these Mylar starter wraps a go and see if that helps.
Anybody tried one? Experiences, good/bad, waste of time?

[Schurkey]

You wrap the starter, you hold the starter heat in. Starters get hot in operation.

Use a metal heat shield so external heat doesn't get to the starter, but starter heat can escape.

[rjpaige3]

Have you tried a remote mount solenoid yet?

[First Bird]

I have the reflective fabric heat shield on my mini starter. I was worried about it keeping the heat in. I secured the shield with stainless zip-ties, leaving a flap open to the front where it would catch wind as the car moves down the road. The car starts well now but it's hard to say which of the 10 things I did to improve starting helped most Header wrap probably helped too.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by Schurkey

You wrap the starter, you hold the starter heat in. Starters get hot in operation.

Use a metal heat shield so external heat doesn't get to the starter, but starter heat can escape.

I've always used a piece of sheetmetal for a shield too, it's worked just fine for me for many years.

[stellar]

What are the symptoms? I have heard heat soak described as slow crank . no crank no sound, and single click from solenoid. What is it doing? A heat shield from headers may help some, but I suspect other issues as well. What is a short time running? Other possible causes are weak battery, worn starter incorrect timing, bad connections.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

This is a “mini starter”, using the starter mounted solenoid...correct?

Some electrical diagnosis, when the problem occurs, will provide a path to a viable repair.

A photo of the starter type may help with a diagnosis.

We build and use modified production Toyota starters for reverse mount circle track mini starters SBC,preferably with remote solenoid.

Main problem I diagnose in service, (besides undercharged/ weak batteries)
poor main power wire connection, particularly @ starter w/o remote solenoid... exacerbated by heat.

On the bench,
pressure washer water penetration(internal corrosion).
Broken wire to one brush pair.

....Diagnose or throw parts/$ at it till gone!

[J.C.you]

Get one of these and take the weak battery out of the equation. Was mulling over going 16 volt with the street pump gas 525 ci motor. I was skeptical in the advertisement in jegs that it will crank a 600 cube motor. I also do header wrap .

[Firebob]

Battery is fully charged but is trunk mounted so that may be part of the issue but it works fine when cold. It's only after heating up that it has issues. Cranks over too slow to start the car. Even with a jump starter hooked up. This is the second mini I've used because of this. The first one went the same way. have dropped the starter and re-installed making sure all connections are good. Engine has 10.7 CR and long tube headers. After heating up and refusing to start I can hit it with a water hose for a few minutes to cool it down and it will work again so I know it's the heat. Timing is set to 8degrees during cranking. I'll try the wrap( comes today). Maybe make a sheet metal shield if I can fit one in between the clutch linkage. Ultimately I'll probably have to buy a new starter or send this one back to MSD for a rebuild but maybe I can stop it from doing this again in a couple of years.

[78w72]

my guess is it's the trunk mounted battery causing the issues, either the battery is too small or going bad, or the starter is going bad. a battery can show charged but not have the amps needed to start a high compression motor. or its the wiring, connections could be "good" but the length of cable or being to small can cause too much resistance & lower cranking amps.

i have one of the cheaper summit mini starters on a 10.75:1 467 stroker motor with a summit heat bag fully wrapped around the starter... have never had a single problem with starting/cranking the engine over or overheating the starter due to the wrap. & i have huge 2" super comp headers that come very close to the starter, my battery isnt trunk mounted but have always had a used undersized battery that cranks slower than a brand new one would.... but still starts fine cold or hot.

i have another pontiac engine car with ~9.5:1 & headers & a old stock used starter with no heat shield & it starts the car like a stock modern car, turns over very fast even with a weak used battery. guess ive been lucky but have never had a hot start issue with my header cars.

its hard to diagnose problems like this over the internet but you have something else going on there, it may be heat related but is likely not the root cause of the problem, i'd bet a dollar its related to the trunk mount/wires or a bad starter/battery. & spraying your starter with a garden hose probably is not helping anything!

[Sirrotica]

One other thing is use welding cable and run the ground right to the engine. If you try to use the body/frame as a aground you will always have a hot start problem. Ask me how I know this...…….

Headers compound this over stock type exhaust too. I built headers for my Stratostreak V8 swap into a Jeep truck, and immediately had hot start issues. A sheet metal shield with 90 degree bend that was secured to the outboard starter mount bolt solved that problem without any other measures.

[TedRamAirII]

Nothing is a better ground path than the body/frame of the car. OEM's know this, and use it. A Voltage Drop test is in order.

[78w72]

Originally Posted by TedRamAirII

Nothing is a better ground path than the body/frame of the car. OEM's know this, and use it. A Voltage Drop test is in order.

sure there is... a cable connected direct to the block/trans, being connected directly to the battery is better than a far away point on the frame. body/frames get rust & are painted etc that can & does cause ground problems, especially on older cars.

but i agree, a voltage drop or ground test along with other diagnosis would be a good idea for this issue.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Originally Posted by TedRamAirII

Nothing is a better ground path than the body/frame of the car. OEM's know this, and use it. A Voltage Drop test is in order.

�� This

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Firebob

Battery is fully charged but is trunk mounted so that may be part of the issue but it works fine when cold. It's only after heating up that it has issues. .

Wires don't like heat either, creates more resistance. So really need to check everything. Voltage drop tests will need to be done, including the ignition switch itself. If that all checks out fine, you need to take a close look at the starter and armature. Even reman starters today have subpar parts in them and won't always be the cure. You may find if the car still has original wiring, being 50+ years old, it might just be time for a new harness.

I don't run any wrap or any kind of heat shield on any of my starters on both header and exhaust manifold applications, some with mini starters, and some with OEM starters, doesn't seem to make a difference, none of the cars exhibit any kind of hot start or heat soak issue at all, and we get things pretty hot here in Arizona.

[HWYSTR455]

Yeah, there's no reason to run heat wrap with a mini starter. The trunk mount is not helping, that's for sure. You need to use quality wire, and depending on how long the run is, you need to step up in size accordingly.

Here is a wire gauge chart, for amps & length:

https://www.wiringproducts.com/battery-cable

So roughly, for a 200A load, similar to a 'typical' starter, for 12 feet, you need 1/0 gauge wire. What size are you running? For both, the POS and NEG wires?

How old is the battery? If it's more than 3 years old, it's most likely time to replace it.

.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by TedRamAirII

Nothing is a better ground path than the body/frame of the car. OEM's know this, and use it. A Voltage Drop test is in order.

Steel has a lower resistance factor than copper does? That's news to me. How in hell is someone supposed to repair the rusty welds in the unibody to lower resistance from ground wires to the rear mounted battery grounded to the sheetmetal?

Maybe they should run a separate ground to the engine to carry amps easier under severe demand situations. I tried to run a body/frame ground in my 73 T/A with a trunk mounted battery, when the engine was hot it wouldn't crank fast enough to start, let it cool off and it started right up. Running welding cable to the bellhousing bolts miraculously solved the problem. So keeping the circuits the same as OEM engineered them to be does work.

The small ground straps used from engine to body will work just fine for running low demand accessories with the engine/transmission being the main grounding point. With a rear mounted battery your attempting to run 200 amps through a small gauge ground straps, which doesn't work. Now run the ground back to the engine where the OEM engineered it to be connected to and it works just fine.

Car manufacturers use the body for one side of the circuit because it's cheaper, not better. If steel wiring was better than the manufactures would surely be using it over copper. If the starter wasn't the main amp drawing component in the electrical system, then the manufacturers wouldn't run the ground cable to the engine.

Looking for amp/voltage drop in a trunk mounted battery configuration is a waste of time because the body/frame system was never engineered to carry 200 amps or more. If they could get away with using it for the ground to the starter the negative battery cable would be less than a foot long going right to a fender, saving the companies millions of dollars in copper.

You can run every test you want to with a VOM and the conclusion will be that the frame/body isn't sufficient to run the high demand starter ground circuit through. The main grounding point needs to be as close to the starter as possible to insure low resistance under high demand situations on that side of the circuit.

[J.C.you]

Originally Posted by Firebob

Battery is fully charged but is trunk mounted so that may be part of the issue but it works fine when cold. It's only after heating up that it has issues. Cranks over too slow to start the car. Even with a jump starter hooked up. This is the second mini I've used because of this. The first one went the same way. have dropped the starter and re-installed making sure all connections are good. Engine has 10.7 CR and long tube headers. After heating up and refusing to start I can hit it with a water hose for a few minutes to cool it down and it will work again so I know it's the heat. Timing is set to 8degrees during cranking. I'll try the wrap( comes today). Maybe make a sheet metal shield if I can fit one in between the clutch linkage. Ultimately I'll probably have to buy a new starter or send this one back to MSD for a rebuild but maybe I can stop it from doing this again in a couple of years.

Suggest u put the battery back to front and ground direct to block. Header wrap is good and probably give u some free ponies by reducing radiant heat up to 50 % underhood and reducing intake heat during reversion by keeping velocity up in the headers. I wrap the collectors also. Keeps the heat off the feet too.

[TedRamAirII]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

Steel has a lower resistance factor than copper does? That's news to me. How in hell is someone supposed to repair the rusty welds in the unibody to lower resistance from ground wires to the rear mounted battery grounded to the sheetmetal?

Maybe they should run a separate ground to the engine to carry amps easier under severe demand situations. I tried to run a body/frame ground in my 73 T/A with a trunk mounted battery, when the engine was hot it wouldn't crank fast enough to start, let it cool off and it started right up. Running welding cable to the bellhousing bolts miraculously solved the problem. So keeping the circuits the same as OEM engineered them to be does work.

The small ground straps used from engine to body will work just fine for running low demand accessories with the engine/transmission being the main grounding point. With a rear mounted battery your attempting to run 200 amps through a small gauge ground straps, which doesn't work. Now run the ground back to the engine where the OEM engineered it to be connected to and it works just fine.

Car manufacturers use the body for one side of the circuit because it's cheaper, not better. If steel wiring was better than the manufactures would surely be using it over copper. If the starter wasn't the main amp drawing component in the electrical system, then the manufacturers wouldn't run the ground cable to the engine.

Looking for amp/voltage drop in a trunk mounted battery configuration is a waste of time because the body/frame system was never engineered to carry 200 amps or more. If they could get away with using it for the ground to the starter the negative battery cable would be less than a foot long going right to a fender, saving the companies millions of dollars in copper.

You can run every test you want to with a VOM and the conclusion will be that the frame/body isn't sufficient to run the high demand starter ground circuit through. The main grounding point needs to be as close to the starter as possible to insure low resistance under high demand situations on that side of the circuit.

I guess my car hasn't been starting for 30 years, with my battery in the trunk. LOL. Car bodies can handle more amps than any cable. Never saw a car body get hot, but have seen plenty of melted cables. No OEM that has a rear mounted battery, runs a ground cable to the starter. How do they get the car started? according to you, its not possible.

[Schurkey]

As always, a properly-done voltage drop test WHILE CRANKING will tell the tale. It's a pain in the ass, though, because you'll need to extend one lead of the voltmeter so that lead goes from starter to battery. Not difficult, just aggravating.