[john]

I plan to relocate my battery to the trunk. I have a 350 engine. Is #2 guage wire large enough. I was thinking of using welding cable. Thanks
John

[AutoReWire]

Hey John,

Al here with AutoReWire.com

#2 Welding cable would be as light as I would go on a stock motor. One of the biggest problems with Chevy starters is the "Hot Soak Problem" where the solenoid gets incredibly hot after the motor is shut down for a while. You go to the local convieniance store, drive up, shut the car off, run in and get your soda, come out and the starter makes noises like you have a dead battery.

The problem is the solenoid is hot, resistance in the windings is high due to the extreme heat. With the #2 cable your not getting the full voltage out of the battery. By the time the juice gets from the battery to the starter to the ignition switch and back to the solenoid the d@^^& thing won't turn over.

We always use at least a #1 welding cable on the average street rod and most hot rods and a #1/0 welding cable on the monster motored race cars and pro street machines.

Hope this helps. If you have trouble finding parts let me know and I'll do all I can to help.

al

[URL DELETED]

[ May 24, 2002: Message edited by: Jon ]</p>

[john]

Thanks very much for the info. Thats what I needed to know.
John

[badA31]

John, Let me add one thing more. Run your ground cable all the way back up to the engine block. Bad idea to ground to the frame near the battery. I don't know all there is to know about this stuff, but others who know more told me that not grounding in this manner is tough on the starter. I've heard of people with trunk mounted batteries having grounding problems. I did it this way on more than one car and have never had a problem. my two pennies.

[willys36@aol.com]

Ditto on grounding the barrtery to the engine. I have my '36 Willys wired like this and never had problems. Had previously grounded to the frame and had a lot of phantom electircal problems.

[Sandman]

Some great info.. I have just got a 400 chev smb and have the heat sink symptom.. did not know what was causing it, now I know..
I have done several remote battery mods.. Agree with what has been previously posted particularly re cable size.. The one comment I would add is re grounding battery direct to block.. This comment is correct in that it will give you the best possible starting performance.. But you should still run a seperate strap from the block to the chassis or body.. reason being that if you dont, you are relying on your drive train prviding the return path back to ground for the rest of the car, and with so many rubber mounts, this will often result in poor performance of other ancillary electrics due to poor earth.. starter will go wild, but problems can occure in other areas.. The extra strap will ensure this does not happen.. it does not need to be as heavy as the main feed from battery to block, I usualy use 1/2 inch flat braded strap..

Cheers
Sandman

[blown69stang]

Not much of a Chevy guy as you can tell from my name, but does the Chevy solenoid mount on the starter or on the firewall/sidewalls in the engine compartment. I know my Mustang has th solenoid on the sidewall near the battery. It would seem smart to have it there but I'm not sure because I have known people with cars that have the solenoid on the starter. Hell my lawn tractor has it on the starter. Anyway, as far as the grounding goes, ground up to the engine. I bought the Moroso trunk kit for my battery and it only came with 3' of ground cable and I went out an got the biggest size cable I could find, which was 0 gauge. I picked up the latest issue of Car Craft and they have an issue on Powermaster Alternators. It has a table for correct minimal gauge sizes in comparison to output of the alternator and length of cable. It says that the charge and ground cables don't need to be 0 gauge unless your alternator puts out 120 amps and is 13ft. long. Look at it and it should help you on that matter but you could just go with the highest gauge available and be safer off.

[willys36@aol.com]

Blown69Stang; YOu may be confusing the battery charge wire from alternator to battery with the main power cable from battery to starter. The former need only be capable of carrying the alternator amp output to charge the battery. The latter needs to carry the max current rate from the battery to the starter & other loads on the car which can be several hundred amps in short spurts. This the latter must be very heavy compared to the alternator wire.

[Jim Weeks]

I have found the information about the battery cables to be very helpful. I have a street rod that started and ran perfectly for a long time and just recently got a little sluggish. I started carefully examining my cables and found a 4 gauge ground wire from the battery to the frame 15 inches long, and a 2 gauge wire from the frame to the starter 12 inches long that had broken off right at the starter mounting bolt. I replaced both wires with # 1 gauge wire and the the car runs and starts perfectly again, so in my case I did not have to run the ground wire all the way up to the engine. If I had not read these posts, I would have never thought to check that. Thanks guys.

[FASTFORD]

i agree with all of the posts. however after some time,the grounded connections on the frame get dirty and rusty.then you start to have irritating problems. i just found a new set up to prevent this.it`s from wireworks and works on all cars(steel or glass).it eliminates the frame grounding. www.wire-works.com
maybe it`s worth trying. luck with your ride.

[dollybud]

Thanks for all the info, as I have the same problem. Is it possible to actually have the incorrect starter? By this I mean a starter for a 153 tooth but on a 168 tooth or vice versa. My starter after engine being hot sounds like its going to fall out,clunk,glang,etc. Is there an easy way to count the flywheel teeth? Thanks in advance.

[Jim Weeks]

I just contacted Ron Francis at the Wireworks to get his take on weather you should run the ground cable from the battery all the way to the engine or ground to the frame as I described in my previous post. He says, and it makes sense, that it is best to run a 1 or 1/0 copper ground cable all the way to the engine because copper conducts electricity better than steel, so I am going to follow his advice.

[Madd Syntst]

Just another thought. In the last three GM products I have wired from scratch, I have installed a Ford solenoid. That has always worked for me.

[bullheimer]

HEY MAD-WHERE DID YOU ATTACH THE WIRE TO THE CHEVY STARTER IF IT DIDN'T HAVE THE SOLENOID?

DOLLY BUD-HELL YES AND THEY WON'T WORK, AS YOU HAVE SEEN.

TWO THINGS ON BAT. CABLE TO ENGINE BLOCK. PAINT DOES NOT CONDUCT ELECTRICITY!!! IF YOU ATTACH THE CABLE TO THE FRAME IT SHOULD WORK TO GROUND ANYTHING MAKING METAL ON METAL CONTACT (W/O PAIINT IN BETWEEN)WITH THE FRAME PLEASE NOTE THAT MOTOR MOUNTS HAVE PLASTIC OR RUBBER IN THEM, WHICH STRANGELY ENOUGH, DOESN'T CONDUCT ELECTRICTY EITHER!! YOU WILL BE DEPENDING ON A VERY TIGHT METAL-METAL CONNECTION AT THE MOTOR MOUNT, IF YOU HAVE THAT, FINE, IF YOU DON'T, WELL, YOU'VE READ THE ABOVE TOO, HAVE YOU NOT?

[Madd Syntst]

Bull, when you run your wire from the Ford solenoid to the GM starter, you have to have a jumper from the maine power lug to the starter lug on the GM solenoid. I have it hooked up that way on a 455 Olds in my 55 Chev truck. The Ford solenoid is mounted under my dash which makes many things possible.