Hi everyone, I recently got my 1986 fc rebuilt and streetported. It only has about 500+ miles on the new engine right now. This being said, i’ve noticed it takes a while start up. Before, it took 3 turns of the
key to turn of the key to start up. Now it takes about 6-8 turns of the key (Crank) to start. My battery is brand new and so is my starter. Any tips or thoughts?

 

Yes, has your tuner accounted for the port on your startup map? The engine is going to have different behavior depending on what kind of port and how aggressive, you're supporting mods, etc.

Hopefully you didn't port an engine and expect to run it off the same map, or worse, a stock ECU.

 

Like the other guy mentioned, what are you using for engine management? Stock ECU or an aftermarket ECU? Depending on the answer, there may be room for improvement there. BTW, it is possible to start & run a street ported motor on the stock ECU, but it probably won't idle as well or start as easily as your used to. I built up a brand new street ported 13BT for my '89T2 two years ago, and initially I was running it on a RTEK 2.x chipped stock ECU. Had zero issues starting it, it would fire as soon as the starter engaged, but I could not get it to idle as smooth as I expected, and the throttle response was a bit lumpy. That convinced my to go all out and do an aftermarket ECU and fuel system upgrades & supporting mods to make the most of the motor.

Anyway, another factor in hard starting rebuilds is what went into the rebuild - did they use used housings, plates, etc. instead of all new parts? If so, don't expect it to fire up as easily as a fresh build on all new parts.

 

Thank you for this because at the time of the rebuild i didn’t have the money for aftermarket ecu so im
running on the stock one as of now.