'97 SpecNeon no start

So at the races two weekends ago, the SpecNeon I'm running this year was overheating like crazy (250F in one hot lap). We finally got it to stop overheating for the race and was able to finish 2nd. However, during the wrench thrashing of changing the radiator and gutting the thermostat, the car stopped starting. It started out as occasional. You can hear the fuel pump cycle when keyed on, and the starter relay click when trying to start. We had to bump start for qualifying and the race, and to get it on the trailer. It won't start at all now. Also, it has a new battery.

So today I swapped out the starter with a spare (not known if good or not). Same thing. You can hear the starter relay click but no crank. Following the (lousy) factory manual, it is coming back with a bad starter ground to engine. However, i can follow the battery cable all the way to the block without issue.

The car does have a very nice kill switch system, but that seems to be working fine. I am getting 12v at the starter.

Any ideas?

EDIT: And it was starting without issue until the overheating issue. With a bump start, it runs fine.

Can you turn the engine over by hand via the crank bolt?

In reply to Ranger50:

Yes. Engine runs fine and is free.

What happens if you swap the starter relay for another? Are you sure its the starter relay thats clicking? Have you got power at the 30 terminal of the starter relay, or is it clicking on dead air? Can you jump the battery terminal on the starter to the trigger wire and have it crank? Is the ground cable burnt up at the battery end? Is it corroded where it bolts to the block by the starter? Is the body ground strap done up as well? You have removed the battery cable clamps and polished them? Check the multiplug connectors at the relay/fuse box and make sure there isn't corrosion there.

There is a bit of work for ya. Check all that and get back to me.

Oh yeah- have you load tested the battery?

Voltage is not nessasarily 'power'. Building on what StreetWiseGuy was getting at, Corrosion can be making it so that you are seeing 12V but it cant push the amps needed.

This will create heat at whatever the bottleneck is.

Try jumping the starter with some battery cables- First jump the starter neg. to batt neg. via the cable and try to start, then try to power the starter positive to battery directly via the same method.

One of these will likely solve the problem, then you investigate from there...

OK, here's what I've done.

Swapped relays. no change.
Bypassed battery ground with jumper cable. No change.
Battery cable ends. New. (Not corroded before, but were cheap, so I swapped them out anyway). No change.
Fuse box. No corrosion. All connections under good and tight. (this car was never a street car).
Battery cables. High end, no corrosion.
Kill switch working properly.
Clutch switch working properly.
Starter tested at advanced on their machine. Working.
Battery - new after the problem first cropped up. Still at 12.6v.

I need to bypass the positive battery cable, but won't get to that until sometime this week. Not sure why I didn't. That one runs through the kill switch and kill switch relay (not normal keyed system). I get voltage when the switch is on, and no voltage when switch is off. Not sure how much amperage though.

All other wiring going to the starter appears OK. The small black wire push connection on the starter is not a tight fit, but no amount of wiggling affects the starter condition.

So that's where I stand right now.

I R stuck. Thanks!

CGLockRacer wrote: In reply to Ranger50: Yes. Engine runs fine and is free.

Doesn't mean anything. Does the motor turn over via the crank bolt without excessive resistance? I'm guessing since you have eliminated the electrical, you will take a look at the mechanical side and see if the engine is beginning to seize up from being overheated. Wouldn't be the first Neon that has seized from overheating I have seen.

In reply to Ranger50:

yes, it turns over fine and runs after a push start. It ran an entire race after the starting issue happened.

Can you reach the backside of the kill switch and bridge or jumper the terminals? I've been parked because of them in the past.

I'm guessing since you have eliminated the electrical

He did NOT eliminate the electrical. This is an electrical problem.

All this talk of relays clicking does not tell us if the starter solenoid itself is making any noise. It sounds like it isnt or OP would have made a point to mention it. Therefore the problem is probably in the solenoid circuit. The starter relay controls power to that circuit. There are two sides of any basic relay, the coil (controlling) circuit, and the load (controlled) circuit. If the relay is clicking that means everything on the coil circuit of the relay is working well enough for the relay to click, which means that's PROBABLY not the problem. That leaves the load side of the circuit (usually pins 30 and 87). That's pretty easy to test because one of them (usually 30) should have battery voltage and the other (87) will have continuity to ground through the load circuit (so it's resistance should be the resistance of the load plus whatever the circuit's wiring adds). So you take a multimeter set for dc volts and stick it in the 30 hole: is there something close to battery voltage? And then you set it for resistance and check the resistance between terminal 87 and the solenoid wire that plugs into the starter (with it unplugged from the starter). There's a good chance you'll find a problem with one of those two tests, and that will tell you where to go from here.

Crawl under with a screwdriver and short the hot lag to the trigger lag. See what happens. Starter wiring can be funny, I remember my dad had an old 84 Chevy C15, he kept a bolt in the cup holder because despite years of fiddling he never got it to reliably crank on wet days.

Thanks for all the advice, folks. I plan on working on it again tomorrow after work. Keep the ideas flowing!

Try neons.org? There's a sticky on this. Check all 4 of your engine groundsif you havnt. Back of the head, trans mount, pass fender, and the one on the radiator support. Also, check the asd relay, those do funny things. When you go to start it does the starter solenoid get power? And remeber, you only need one good strand in a wire to get good ohms.

On those 1st gen Neons, doesn't the circuit for the starter run to the alternator first? I could be wrong.

Fuse 11 to starter relay. Ign switch through clutch switch. Relay to starter, battery off of starter, fusable to generator. The picture makes much more sense. And the batt/alt wire hook up at the same place. Why havnt u disabled the clutch swith yet? Unplug and shove a fuse in it.

Check the ASD relay in the PDC. With neons weird electrical issues are usually the result of bad grounds. There are 5 major ones. - Battery to core support, battery mount to core support, small gauge wire near pass headlight, small gauge wire near driver head light, small gauge wire towards center of core support. Any of those being broken or corroded can cause a no start. Also a bad fan relay (on drivers side chassis leg near battery tray) can sometimes cause a no start.

It runs!!!!

First of all, thanks for all of the suggestions. I tracked everything that was mentioned and didn't find anything. Finally, I ended up replacing a 6" piece of the brown wire that runs to the spade connector on the starter. I didn't like the fit (pretty loose), and it showed signs of crimping. I had checked the continuity of it and it was fine. But I guess it wasn't passing enough juice through to engage the starter solenoid.

I also disabled the clutch switch while I was at it.

Thanks again, GRM brain trust!

For future reference: Check voltage to the starter WHILE cranking. The wire problem you described would show very low volts at the starter if there was a load on it.

Otherwise, congrats!

In reply to Vigo:

Noted :)