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For a while now, I've been having some intermittent problems when starting the car, especially with the alarm remote (probably doesn't make a difference). The alarm is a CompuSTAR 2WSSR. I took it to the tech who installed the alarm and went over many of the connections. Not sure if he found the problem, but he did find something that needed replacing and could definitely contribute to the cause.


This is the starter cable...I built this several years ago because the stock cable did pretty much the same thing. I thought I had routed it far enough from the exhaust manifold, but obviously not....



It's been in place for a good number of years and both ends started out the same color. The end seen with the connector attached to the starter (the other end to the battery of course), was routed as the stock one was close to the exhaust manifold. Over the years, the heat apparently got to it and made the insulation brittle and cracked, inside the cracks, the copper strands are corroded. I had him replace the cable with a length of welding cable of the same gauge and routed it around the oil pan and paralleled the negative cable that attached to the block. Something I could have done, but since the car was already disabled in the shop...

I should know in the next few days or weeks if we fixed this problem.

Good Luck!!

hell while ur doing all that if you haven't already done so redo all your ground wires

Grounds all seem to be OK, but we'll check those next, this is a 5-speed BTW so the install was a little more involved. I've a feeling that it's the signal to the starter enable relay that is having problems. Mine was one of his first CompuSTAR installs and I can't really complain, any wiring problems that arise are lifetime warranty.

Its been discussed on this forum plenty of times but I just did a google search and this is the first thread that poped up.

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/for ... 73496~PN~1

Check it out

That's been done long ago, even before I knew what Big Three meant. :happy055:

Haha, we just swap out a 305 for a 350 in my cousins truck, when he put the starter on and ran the starter cable he forgot to put the wire in the little clip on the inner fender well (which holds it away from the exhaust manifold..)

About 3 days later we were cruisin the back roads in the wee morning hours when all of a sudden the truck dies and we lose all power... Turns out the starter wire was shorting against the exhaust manifold.. So we took the starter wire off and wrapped the sh*t out of it with electrical tape and zipped tied it away from the manifold...

Holy toasted wires batman!

Yes our audio wire doesnt like heat that much. If your going to be that close to an exhaust line maybe get some of the aluminum backed insulation to help protect it?

Hit up the part store and get the correct kind of wire...

Haha, thats a fire waiting to happen...

Smokey the bear says.... nothing, he's a f*cking bear, bears dont f*cking talk.

Thanks, I've already got a new cable made and installed (welding cable of the same gauge). Also it's routed nowhere near the exhaust manifold like the stock routing was. New route comes down and around the front of the oil pan and then parallels the battery negative cable from the block to the battery. It's also about 2 feet shorter.