<VV> Hot Start Difficulties from Delco Remy Point of View

[Vairjer@cs.com]

Several posts on the subject of slow turning cranking motors have had various 
causes for slow crank...all of the reasons are valid in some instances, 
whether SBC or Corvair engines.  But Smitty (Mr. Sensitive) is right as usual....

Chevrolet is notorious for pinching pennies on their electrical systems, and 
from Delco Remy's point of view always used undersized battery cables, as 
copper was expensive in those days....Hot stall cranking was a major problem into 
the late 1960s with high compression engines, even if equipped with large 
enough battery cables....Pontiac's high compression engines were equipped with an 
"ultra" high performance cranking motor with special epoxy coated field coils 
which had extra "turns" of copper strap in order to have sufficient horsepower 
to crank some of their engines.  Chevrolet used the standard cranking motor 
in all but extreme engine applications.

Chevrolet, on the other hand, tolerated up to two volts drop on some 
applications before they would upsize to the proper size battery cables....We were 
always fighting with them to provide proper voltage to the cranking motors.  The 
worn bushing and heat buildup reasons are very valid, but are much more rare 
than poor connections and undersize cables...the original size and type cables 
may look good in concours, but are often a source of low voltage to the 
"starter".  If the solenoid gets too hot, you normally don't crank slowly, you just 
don't get "pull-in" and engagement of the flywheel, and usually don't even get 
it to "turn" as the motor never sees the battery connection through the 
contact disc.  

As we used to see it...
Jerry McKenzie
Former Delco Remy Quality and Test Engineer