The V8 Owners Forum -

Right, got a 302 engine just over a week ago, and only tonight got round to trying to fire her up.. long story short, i hate electricty. how hard can a carb engine be to wire up! after 20 or so minutes of fiddling i manged to get the engine to turn over (since when did starters only have one cable to them! im too young for this..) then i connected up the rest in what seemed like a resonable way, started trying to get a spark, then started swapping them about, till finally after another half hour or so, the coil shat itself and i called it a day. The dizzy is not like anything ive used before, ie, not a breaker type system, its a solid state sort of thing (old or new school? i dont know) there are 3 wires from the dizzy, obviously 2 from the coil, then 4 off from a metal box thing, then another device (solenoid for the started or similar i believe?) with 2 more (i think) wires coming off it..
any balnks filled would be awsome, im gonna steal another coil off something else tomorrow and have another go, and perhaps give more detailed info on the wires there are dangling, as i dont think much of the above makes sense or entirely accurate..
cheers guys!

You really need a proper circuit diagram, guessing will only destroy expensive components!

Chris.

If you really do hate 'electricty' , best get someone to do it for you.
Guessing things will end in tears.

Right, had another look today, swapped the coil, and have taken photos and noted down every wire on the thing.. here goes.

The above photo is of wires from the dizzy, they are green/yellow, green, and green/brown.

This crazy piece of witchcraft (started solenoid i believe) has a single brown wire, (switched live for starter?) then a large cable to the starter and another terminal to the batter i assume.

next up is this contender, 4 wires, yellow, orange, green, red/blue. and the letters that you can see on the box read, I A S F

next this lot from the alternator, 3 wires go into 2 through a plug, one is red/blue and the other is a fat black on.

finally the coil, positive terminal is on the right.

Anyone that can give any clues or ANYTHING at all to aid me in my quest of coloured string connection will be loved forever more! if not im gonna have to resort to some serious guess work... THANKS!

Help a bit, 2nd pic is solenoid, normally mounted to body inner wing, 2 large terminals, 1 batt, 1 starter, 1 small terminal is live when cranking engine over, you obviously have an old style starter, most now have the solenoid built on top.

Just to give you a little knowledge
As for the coil, normally + goes live when you turn IGN on, this will be when Batt and Oil pressure light come on, (remember alternator needs to be wired correctly for this). The - on coil normall would go to the Dizzy but I havent dealt with your type of Amp before so maybe someone else can help there.

Alternators normally have Positive to the battery and thin wire that would go to the battery light on the dash.

Get a test lead and check the power on the wires in your loom, with IGN ON and OFF, label either LIVE, IGN or EARTH will help.