Throw up some pics when you get a chance!! Food for thought: It was about 3 weeks from the time I ordered the engine until it showed up. Sounds like that time varies based on their availability of engine blocks. So far customer service with them has been good. Hoping to fix the starter problem tomorrow and give you some solid feedback! Cheers!

 

Well, I took the old starter out and hooked up a multimeter to the smaller lead going to the starter and the bigger lead. Connected the battery and got no voltage, so I'm assuming the solenoid on the starter is bad. New starter. Reconnect battery and it the starter engages! It does this with or without the starter relay in the fuse box plugged in. Any ideas?

 

Your meter has to be bad. The large wire should be constant battery voltage. The small wire is switched voltage when the key is turned to start. So when you have one meter lead on the block for ground and one to the large wire you get no voltage? If you don't get voltage there you have a big problem somewhere. But no voltage would be no starter action.

Last time I had a weird problem there I was 16 and pinched the harness in the bellhousing on a 1976 Malibu. God I miss that car.

 

The small wire has to be shorted somewhere or there is something shorting the small lead to the big terminal. WEIRD.

 

I just checked for voltage between the two wires, and not the large wire and ground. I'm guessing like you mentioned in the following post is that it is shorted somewhere.

 

I thought that was what you might be doing. Check it again, one wire to the block or ground of battery. The other lead to the cable you are testing. The large lead is supposed to be battery voltage. The small lead should not show voltage (until you crank to start). If it does it is shorted somewhere. You said you pulled the relay... so it has to be screwed up after the relay. I'm not familiar with the layout of this harness but shouldn't be too hard to find.

 

Turns out the little tang from the big wire was touching the litte wire. Fixed it and fired it up!! Sounds awesome. Oil pressure went straight to 60. Only driven it around the block so far, but it seems a bit louder than the 5.3 and bit more torque. I won't really know till after break in. Thanks for the help!

 

Good to hear! So the tune was just that good huh? Just click... vroom and drive?

Stopped down at the shop to check on my transmission will probably be done tomorrow. Now I just need to figure out the pcm settings for the stall.

Let us know how the break in goes...

 

Fired right up! IMHO the folks at Nelson Performance know their stuff. I'll let y'all know!

 

How many miles in are you? Waiting to hear back on what you think of the power.

Mine is sitting in back of work with some gangsta lean going on. DJM sent me 2 passenger side lower control arms. Didn't notice till the drivers side was all torn down. So I put the stock arms back on. Ran out of enthusiasm due to shoulder pain (take care of your bones kids). Got injections in both shoulders yesterday so plan on finishing the drop this weekend if the arm gets here in time. Doing this all alone so will figure out how to pull the bed with the forklift and will do the new fuel pump while I am there. Styling in the company HHR until I get the truck driving again. Starting to wonder about wheels. The big brakes are a snug fit in the 18" wheels. Thinking about factory 20" but want to wait to see what looks best. I plan on being hard on tires so that might sway me too.

Wife is sold on a turbo to go on top of this atk but not sure till I see what they do for ring gaps. Won't run too much thru it it's a fall back in case we want a little more power.

Hope yours is getting plenty of smiles to the gallon.