well real easy way to test the battery is voltage drop if it trickle charges up to like 12.4-12.7 but quickly drops to to like 11.7 with a multimeter it’s definitely weak but may also have a bad cell it. Most auto parts stores have the hand held battery tester that will tell you condition of the battery, some might require you lug it into the store to test it but I recommend a dedicated battery tester at home as the quality of batteries declines with each passing year.
Optima Batteries from what I’ve heard is not the shining example of the pinnacle of automotive battery technology what once they was.They just look nice. I personally would just buy the cheapest battery you can afford and expect it to give up the ghost by the warranty date. The Walmart brand last as long as the parts store brands but I’ve had one litterally explode at -15 degrees F on a car I wasn’t driving for a few weeks. I live near a discount battery seller and had good luck with their house brand batteries at half the price of anywhere else selling a battery. They’ve held up for a year so far but the minivan tested it’s battery and we had to jump it every morning it was less than 10 degrees and when it was really cold we had jump it if it sat more than 4 hours, known bad parasitic draw due to an automatic sliding door failure.
Another route you can go is lithium Ion battery’s. They’re much lighter due to not having lead in them…who doesn’t like weight savings? There may be some kind of diode/regulator requirement for that I haven’t read much about it apart from motorcycle applications.
i’ve read back through this, and lots of rabbit holes to go down. take your batt to AutoZone or o’riellys and they will load test for free, along with bench testing alt’s and starters. if stores are not close by, call them first to ask. if fails a load test, let them quote you a new batt. if batt pass’s a load test, then I’d take to other store and have them load test it without saying you just had someone else do it. if it pass’s twice you can rule out human error. next would be to focus on cable condition and tightness from batt to starter. need batt load test results first before going any further. as far as choice of batt that depends on what you want to spend. I only have background with flooded and agm. I assume you live in the warm south so you don’t need a high cold cranking amp (cca) batt. as far as flooded batt, higher cca batt’s will not last as long as a lower rated cca batt due to plate thickness inside batt case. they need to make plates thinner in order to get more plates inside batt case to increase cca rating. road vibrations and heat will break down plates faster causing batt to fail. if you buy a new batt, do your research to see what other people say about it. MAKE SURE YOUR BATT CHARGER IS COMPATIBLE WITH WHATEVER YOU BUY, SINCE I KNOW AGM REQUIRES A LOWER VOLT RATING TO CHARGE. glenn
next, in my opinion, by-passing the clutch switch and being done with it is a poor choice. say you get use to it, start reaching through drivers window to start engine, and just becomes second nature. all it takes is that 1 time someone unknownly puts in gear, you reach through window, hit key and car leaps forward or backwards, God forbid engine lights, and jumps to 1,000 to 1,300 rpm. a human body will not stop it. unknown if park brake functions, will hold it or stall engine. if you go that route of by-passing the clutch switch, i’d put a push button somewhere inside the car that requires you to push before cranking engine. glenn
last is checking for a current amp draw. your car is new enough that multiple items will have a batt circuit for memory which will use a small amount of current. those are batt killers on a vehicle that sits more than runs. items to question: digital radio with station pre-sets and clock, power seats, power door locks, abs, HVAC controls, maybe the dash, and anything not oem wired in. you said you already removed alarm, which would be my #1 on a car that sits. is your fuel inj box wired into a batt circuit? as far as checking I like to use my eyes first. remove post batt cable from batt post and walk away for 5-10 mins. get close enough for your eye sight and see what kind of arc you have when you touch cable back to post. snap and crackle, is a lot of current being used for something to wake up. small arc would be normal if car is still using a batt circuit for something. next remove pos batt cable again. remove dome light bulbs if doors are going to be opened. use a volt/ohm meter that can test current with a cable slot labeled 10 amp. unless you really know your meter, you may have to look at your manual for which setting you need to select and test leads are attached: black to “com”, red to “10 amp”. DO NOT TOUCH LEADS TOGETHER OR YOU WILL BLOW THE FUSE INSIDE YOUR METER. with pos cable removed from pos batt post for at least 5 mins, touch meter leads between pos batt post and pos batt cable. it does not matter which way leads are attached, if backwards, display with have minus in front of it, and write down what numbers you see including where decibel point is at. whatever reading you have may start to go lower as things wake up and go back to sleep. after 3 min’s all items should be a sleep. at that point start pulling fuses one at a time with needle nose pliers and write down if your reading drops. look at index on fuse cover and record location of that fuse. put fuse back in and pull next. when done with fuses, pull relays next 1 at a time, and record drops in readings. if 1 relay makes huge change, swap with another relay that looks the same—you could have a relay stuck closed using current. when done under hood, do same inside car for 1 or more fuses boxes. if 1 fuse or relay makes a big change, you now have direction to focus on. I have no spec on meter reading you should have, but 0.5 amps would be high on 1 single car batt. that would be a question for your car guys. hope this helps some, glenn
Just get a regular battery if the car is a toy. Those gel batteries I feel need a slower charge if running all the time. 1/4 mile cars will use them cause they don’t run for long.
To be clear, I get in. Push the clutch to the floor. Make sure its in Neuteral, Insert the key in the ignition cylinder. Turn it to acc. then turn it further another step to run, and then to start. At start, It does nothing. no noise. No nothing other than the power on the dash flashing as it would when starting. No noises from the engine bay,no noises from the cabin. zilch. zip. nada. dead stick. entirely dead.
i hope that helps. I not sure if im describing it well enough.. its just like if i had not turned the key at all other than the guages and lights flashing like it would when you turn the key to start it to run.
I went to my friends home, and picked the battery up out of the car thursday night. from saturday evening at 4pm until wednesday when my friend checked on the battery as we left it connected to the car as normal, it went from 12.4 or 12.6 volts to 8 volts. Now i dont believe that there is anything that should be sucking out the power anymore at that great of a level, so im betting the battery is trash on that alone. Im hoping tomorrow if i have enough energy and drive, to take the battery to a parts store for testing.
yeah i was wondering that about the Optimas now a days. As for lithium batteries i’d love to go that route, but they are way above my budget at this time from what little research i’ve done.
I may do as youre suggesting and just get the best battery i can for the least amount of cheddar as it is not exaclty growing on trees around here for me, and i could use saving a buck anywhere i can these days. I had been told by someone else to get an optima again (i’ve had them back in the day (early 2000’s) and i wasnt really all that impressed by them, but i chaulk that up to having a parasitic drain on the system and it was killing the battery prematurely. I’m hoping with the replacement wiring harness and all the wiring clean up we’ve done, that we’ve eliminated all of the parasitic drains at this time. Alas, i dont know for sure though. There could literally be a set of wires under the hood that is from the old v6 fuel injection harness that has a parasitic drain on it too, i just do not know at this point. Thanks for the info Fit&FInish
that is a great idea. I think i will do that now that i have the battery in my truck bed.
Cables are new within a year of age. As is all negative and grounds to the body and block.
i do. it rarely gets down to 10 degrees at all. that said, we’re also almost in spring here. all week its been 75-80 degrees so far. that said, i’d not known any of that about the plates in the battery itself. I always thought Cold Cranking Amps was just how many amps it has from a cold start, after the car had not been ran and the battery was cold so to speak, not from cold as in the outside temperature being cold. I also always though the higher cold cranking amps, the more power it has to start regardless of the outside temperature. Thank you for explaining these how you did cause i was obviously off. I think the battery i have now has 650 cca and 850 normal if memory serves.
From what youve explained, getting a higher CCA battery literally does not do anything positive for me, except to possibly make it easier to start the car in cold weather, which, while the car is a “toy” it wont be driven in the cold usually anyways, cause i drive my truck as a daily, and my camaros are my show/cruise in/ fun drive cars. Rarely do i bring them out when its cold outside.
my charger is a typical battery charger with a 50 am p boost for starting option, and the trickle charger is just that. i’d have to go read on its outside description to tell me what it says exactly.. Forgive me agian, but what is AGM?
Ideally i’d do this only to test the switch itself to ensure that it is not the culprit. I’d be feeling a bit odd leaving it in there even though it would solve the issue, it would pose a major safety issue, and goodness knows i get forgetful as much as the next guy. .plus what happens if someone else drives the car and doesnt know about it. they could wreck it easily. so yeah, its not what i’d wanna leave in there.
the idea of a push button is interesting.. i’d use it more for a anti theft option than a permanent fix for the bad clutch safety switch.
Yes, At this point the car has an alarm system that we just wired in, and a brand new radio, that i just wired in as well. Both of which were not in the car functioning properly before this whole wiring harnes swap and replacement that we’ve been doing since last september. (1 day a week, and not every week sometimes, so while its taken a while, we’ve felt we have really done good time wise on everything we’ve been doing… but i digress..)
Old alarm removed, new alarm installed.
new radio installed (had no radio before)
Holley Sniper setup - does have a ROM memory, to keep settings, i dont think it uses battery to keep settings cause we had it unplugged for months and it picked everything back up like it was nothing.
Neon under car wiring - rocker switched, dead otherwise.
Aftermarket fog lamp installation. - rocker switched as well. both neon and fogs on brand new relays.
HVAC was factory heat only working before we did harness. Not functioning now. i think i left it unplugged accidently. Going to troubleshoot still.
when we were connecting the battery back there was little to 0 arc visible. same as when we went to jump it off, but that arc was a bit larger and brighter. dome lights were not functioning as i had no bulbs in them to begin with, but now we’ve swapped everything over to LED and they all function without issue. plus LED has less draw on power than the originals.
the instructions and method you explained about testing each circuit via pulling fuses while connected to both positive wire and post, with the meter is excellent. I’ll discuss this with my buddy whos an old army air force electrician and we’ll use it to go thru the circuits. Thank you so much for this step by step information.
Thanks for your help too glenn.
BobO, thank you for this information. from what you and Fit have said as well as what Glenn has said, i think i will stay away from the Optimas, and just go natural lead acid battery. Thank you.
thank all you guys for the insight, instructions, and assistance. I dont get to go work on the car again for another week or so, so i wont have any updates until after next weekend coming. Thank you all again.
Dude, I’m about to tell you the best thing to do to that car, but you probably won’t like it. But you should know that I’m not racist. I deal with both Furds and Chebbies… Well I am kind of racist against Dodges, but they’re such a black sheep, redhead stepchild, weird bunch. Still all my youngins are Afro-Cracker.
What could be cooler than a LS swapped Foxbody you ask??? How about a Coyote swapped GEN3 Fcar? Look I’ve never owned a GEN3, but I have owned GEN4’s and some things I learned along the way is Fbody > Foxbody, amd Coyote > LS, and GEN3+ Coyote > GEN5 LT. You should throw you a GEN3 Yote in that car. I mean you probably will have the room for it with the strut setup on the GEN3, plus Chebbie guy WAY exaggerate Coyotes physical size. Somehow it’s always dismissed that Modular/Coyote with their 3.937" bore spacing is several inches shorter than LS or old SBC. A Coyote swapped GEN3 Fbody would be the bomb. I’ve been sayijg thos for several years since I went from LS to LT1 to GEN3 5L.
hehe i like how you think, but if i were to ever take out my 355 i have in the car now, id put in a LS or LTg5 build instead of anything else. I’ll also have to vehemently disagree with you about the coyote being > LT Gen 5. just as i’d disagree with the original coyote being > than the Gen 1 LS 3 engines.
Im such a chevy fan man, itd be sacrilege to put a ford motor in one. If i still had my old 88 fox droptop, i’d definitely put a coyote in it! i know they fit barely. those Coyotes have a HUGE head on both sides. Im not much a fan of DOHC or SOHC cars at all. so i’ll keep my old style pushrods thanks though for the thoughts and ideas regarding it.
Did it discharge to 8 volts like immediately? That’s a massive draw like…watch for hot wires and fires level of draw…if not and it discharged slowly…
Did you try jump starting the Camaro? If you did and it still doesn’t start I doubt the battery is your main issue (I could be wrong) but if the battery charged up to anything over 12.3 without dropping voltage I’d say it should of had enough juice to start or try to start the car (you usually get some weak starter noises until the battery is down to the lower 11’s voltage). If your parasitic draw is dropping by fractions of a volt while it sits for a week…that’s not your biggest issue either.
if your dash comes on but the fuel pump doesn’t activate then something is interfering with the fuel pump. If you can get the fuel pump to work independently with a direct 12v battery source than the pump is good it’s just not getting signal to turn on.
if your starter also isn’t attempting to engage than something is interfering with it’s operation. You can also test the starter by removing it and hooking it up to a battery source . if it works than it’s not getting voltage in the car.
since both of these are happening if you had a bone stock car I’d put money on the ign cylinder or clutch switch but make sure to test them individually. with the ignition cylinder it is possible that contact is happening at the acc on but not start or that it isn’t sending proper voltage to the ecu or (less likely) that it’s internally grounding out .
So recheck your connections,grounds,wire splices,check the battery, the individual components that should be working but are not,try jumpstarting it with the battery charged up as much as possible, run a bypass on the clutch switch to verify whether nor not it will start (you conceivably can try this first with a healthy battery but at this point it wouldn’t indicate a bad switch unless the car starts right up) and then try bypassing the ign switch and see if that allows for engine start. And finally if your security system is tied into the operation of the starter and fuel pump than it can be your problem but that is modern immobilizer stuff like my lexus gs400 that was super picky about which key I was using.
No, real sacrilege is putting a stroked 406 SBC in my 1973 Toyota Land Cruiser. It is 250 lbs lighter than the straight 6 and 4x the HP. Does it bother me that my Toyota has a Chevy heart? No not at all. When I punch the gas I giggle like a little girl. Any jeeps out there that want to play will have a bad day.
i wasnt there from saturday at 4pm until wednesday at around 3pm when he disconnected it. I’d say it was a slow draw, from the beginning of that time till he disconnected it. I dont know for sure, but that is my belief. I know for a fact there is no open wires or hot wires anywhere inside the car.so yet again i am suspect of the battery being bad. very bad. Sadly i didnt get out todya to test the battery.
Saturday we had charged the battery for about 6 hours before we tried to start it. when it didnt start, we hooked the charger back up to it on the 50amp boost and it still did the same thing. Then i tried to jump it off with my 1500 chevrolet truck. It did yet again the same thing, nothing. we got zero starter noises the entire time we tried to start it. I’m unsure of a parasitic draw, yet, and as such im unsure of what it would draw during a normal week sitting as the battery didnt make it until wednesday till it rad 8 volts.
Well good news here, the fuel pump starts up fine, and runs as is expected. My previous mechanic had bypassed the factory wiring and ran it directly to the Holley Sniper EFI setup to control it as it has provisions for it to do just that.
2- the starter never gets the signal to engage is how it feels. which is why im leaning to the battery and then the clutch safety switch. The starter has proven to be good in the past many times. It is a powermaster mini-starter. As i said, it is acting like it never gets a signal to engage, but when manually powered it does without issue.
The steering column, including the ignition cylinder has been rebuilt and replaced by me personally. I am going to disassemble the top half of the steering column again, to ensure that i have put everything in correctly, as the ignition cylinder feels like it is catching on something like the spring that it is attached with in there, sometimes. its hard to describe in words, but I will double check all of that, as it is not too hard to figure out. Another issue there I’m concerned with is the fact the horn is not getting any power when it did before simply by touching the wire to the metal in the steering wheel adapter. it does not now, so something there has to be amiss. I will also address this when i take apart the top of the steering column again.
the cars ecu i wouldn’t think is necessary to do anything since the car runs off a carb setup that was converted to the Holley EFI which has the computer for it self contained in the Holley throttle body efi setup. Would the factory Computer still control anything in the car ? i ask as while i don’t think it would i am no mechanic.
the ignition cylinder as i said above could be a issue too, so ill re-verify it is all good too.
I’ll reverify all ground connections are good, but under the hood we haven’t changed any of them. in the dash we’ve re connected all grounds that were with the factory harness as it was originally done. so those should still be good 100%. No harm in rechecking though.
If the new battery alone does not do the trick. and if the double checked/rebuilt ignition area/ column isn’t fixing it, then we will try jumping it. if that doesn’t work. Then we’ll bypass the clutch safety switch, do with a wire and if that doesn’t do it ultimately I’ll be at a loss completely.
when we installed the alarm, we didn’t wire in the ignition kill / starter kill/ whatever it is it does to stop from starting as i just wanted the alarm more for power locks and trunk release motor work. not so much for anything else.
the factory security system (called VATS) has been bypassed and the computer for it removed and disposed of, and hasn’t been used in years. I wouldn’t think it would have anything to do with the latest problem of non start, but i can double check this as well if needed and I’ll do it if none of the above corrects the issue.
its a good idea, but unfortunately it is a pain in the butt to do that, as they put the battery in a odd position in my truck. so i’ll be checking the original battery and replacing if it is bad regardless for the car.
thanks again all.. all of these ideas is a big help. Im eager to go back to my buddies so i can work on my car some more and test all these theories out. it wont be until next saturday that i can do so though.
That TOpdon thermal device for 229.99 is a great deal. i may have to look into one of those myself. that is awesome. and has so many other uses than just automotive too… thanks for the link and video.
if you couldn’t start it WITH a jump then I don’t think your battery is the main culprit here. Focus on the clutch switch and ignition (one of the things about todays parts is “Brand New” no longer means “GOOD”) and verify your fuses are still good, since you know the starter and pump work with dedicated voltage than the issue is they aren’t getting voltage when you turn the key. I know I’m confusing but this is part of my process. I’d say if everything else fails verify all your grounds, order up that amazon washer kit and just place em on every ground fastener you can touch…and if you have any ground straps that look like they’ve even thought about oxidizing replace them too. The switch is a likely culprit, if you had a stock harness and ecu I’d say it’s the ignition switch hands down because of the pump not firing with the key set to on, but if it’s wired in different the clutch switch could now be the master switch for the rest of the system.
I was afraid you were going to say something like that. Hence why im going to do just what you suggest. I pray that one or the other is the culprit, but at this time i dont hold much faith in either.
yeah sadly you are 100% right there. It does stink that it is so too. We’ve been all through the fuse box, they all are good. we even went through and verified each fuse to have the proper fuse rated amperage in it. I agree with what you’re saying about when i turn the key which is why im suspect of the ignition and clutch safety switch. The more we’ve discussed this, the more i want to get into that steering column again and re-verify that everything is functioning properly.
while it may be, it gives me good steps to follow through, and to troubleshoot. I’ll re-verify every ground, as well, but with everything working for the most part, i just cant imagine that it is something wrong with the existing grounds under the hood. And the ones from inside the cabin we’ve doubly made sure they were in and secure.
wait which switch? the ignition or the clutch?
It does have a stock harness in the dash board, and it does have a stock harness in the engine bay. the dash harness is pretty much a brand new replacement harness from a 91-92 Z28 that i had purchased from Hawks. It is not hacked up at all, and has all connections in their proper places minus the Air bag and VATS controllers as the car has neither so they’ve both been removed.
the Engine harness, is factory original for a v6 car. which while it controls starting, the engine management is ran thru the Holley sniper setup. And as I’ve said, the Holey system runs the fuel pump, so when the key is turned on, it gets power, and thus the pump primes as normal. so yet again, we’re back to the clutch and the ignition switches.. along with the possible battery issue i have yet to have tested though. i will get it tested t his week sometime for sure though.
ok, well simple tests here are just bypassing the clutch switch and hotwiring the car :).if you bypass the clutch switch and she starts bobs your uncle, if you hotwire it and it starts bob’s your uncle.
if neither/both don’t work then it’s possible the ecu is bad or possibly the security system is somehow still active?
My buddies scan tool has the ability to read all those systems if the data is there so if you have access to a fancy scan tool that can tell if it has specific modules and whether or not modules are shaking hands you could try seeing if a security signal is being requested before messing with the switches.
well I was thinking you had done more custom wiring than you have and in so doing potentially made the clutch switch a main or “multi” switch, I was also under the impression that the fuel pump wasn’t priming when key switched to on position.
start with the clutch switch simply because you’ve had to replace it before and known failure point, then move to ignition, if you have access to fancy scan tool make sure the vats system is not active (you can do this at any point) because if the stock ecu is seeking that signal and not getting it then that could be the issue)
agreed. im gonna start simple and go from there. it hasnt failed me yet that method.
those have crossed my mind, but knowing the car, and what i know about it. none of that should even matter cause the vats computer doesnt exist anylonger and the factor computer is not running anything unless it has something to do with the gauges… which i dont know or think it does. We’ll see as its currently plugged in. if i can get the car to start. im going to unplug it while running and see if it does anything.
a scan tool has crossed my mind, but im pretty sure ODB1 is so basic and so much has been done that the system is pretty senile at this point in the car. I no longer even have a light bulb in the gauges for the Service Engine Soon light, the security light, and i think some other idiot lights like the “shift” light. etc. I dont know if a fancy reader could read anything from the odb1 setup or not. it may be worth a try, but that to me is a complex trouble shooting situation thus its way way down on the list of trying to figure things out.
ah. yeah there is custom wiring, but its not the basic operations of the car. i’ve tried to keep all that as close to a 92 z28 as possible for ease of repair and troubleshooting. The most complex stuff is probably the holley sniper setup as far as custom wiring is concerned. The clutch should be exactly how the factory designed the wiring for it.. as should be the rest of the dash wiring. Yeah im sorry if i didnt make it clear enough originally about the fuel pump priming. It comes on and primes as it should when you turn the key to run. that is being controlled by the sniper though, so at least the ignition is getting power to the sniper enough to prime the pump and turn on the digital 3x5 computer display for the sniper management.
I will once i put the new battery in, if that does not fix the situation. I’ve had to replace it at least 3-4 times in the last 5 years. The ignition ill also mess with some to begin with cause i want to make sure its perfect, and its easy to get to with the tool kit i have for it.
I’ll check the vats system with a fancy scan tool as a last resort as i dont have access to one readily without pulling some strings. You are correct though , that if for some reason its looking for that signal and not getting it, well that could be the issue all along as well. We will find out one way or another. The vats not working would make it do the exact same thing “start wise” except normally the Security system light on the dash would be flashing… since i dont have a bulb in that spot, it very well may be an issue.
Today I took the old battery to Advance auto, and had it checked out. well when it was tested, out of 650 cold cranking amps, it registered as having a whole 12. thats right. 12 CCA is all that showed on the machine. we tested it further and it found dead cells. I’ve bought a new battery, i went standard as per everyones suggestions. I bought the DIe Hard Gold, as it was only 20 bucks more than the silver. all said and done, it still wasnt cheap, but the new battery has like 700 or 800 cold cranking amps, so its a good bit stronger there than the old battery. I hope that it will be a good battery and be all that was wrong. we’ll find out soon enough im sure this saturday im planning on working on it agian, so ill know something by saturday night, and should be able to post up either saturday evening on it or sometime sunday. I also was able to buy a battery hold down block… i just gotta find a bolt to screw it down with now. lol. we’re getting there.
