Ok, I just transplanted a 94 impala engine into my 69 firebird. I burned up a starter the first day I tried to start it. So I got another starter and tried it today. Cranks irregular and super slow and starter starts to smoke...just like the first starter I had did. Ok I stop cranking and decide to disconnect the coil power line. Car cranks like a pro. Connect them again and crappy/slow and smokes. I checked firing order and everything is fine. What's the deal with when I have the coil hooked up? It's almost like if you have a car with a regular distributor and have the initial advance set too high. I had bryan at pcmforless do my pcm btw. Thanks.

 

Coil power line? Do you mean the coil wire to the distributor? You are sure the plug wires are run like this ? Are you sure you indexed the distributor correctly when you installed it.

 

I doubly checked all spark plug wires before I posted origionally hoping that was the problem. Also the impala ss's used vented opti. Not the 93-94 like the fbodies. It's been suggested to try a different pcm and ignition module. So I'm gonna "borrow" those off my brother's 95 trans am and see if either of those work. It's also been suggested that the ECT sensor could be bad. Could this cause it?

 

Even the vented opti has to be indexed correctly. You can easily check the temp sensor with a scanner.

 

Well it was the opti. Works now thanks.

 

Bad or indexed wrong? This will help when a search is used.

 

Just indexed wrong.