Attempted an HEI mod on my 88 now EVERYTHING has gone wrong please help

oachs83

Hello everybody so I had an incident where a critter of some sort chewed all but one wire on my igniter on my 1988 EZGO Marathon. So doing some research I saw that the HEI mod was very popular and thought why not and bought the parts. Made a heat sink for the igniter and used the silicone for it as well. Wired everything to a T and followed the instructions exact on the sticky in this site and fired her up. Well it fired up but was running really bad popping like it was rich and I noticed the exhaust got extremely hot. It was not running good at all and was progressively get worse to where I had to get off and push it the rest of the way in my garage. I got about a total of two laps around my house is all. I thought well maybe since the gas is about a year old I should replace it. I did also check the air filter put fresh gas in it and all it did was turn over.

I put it on jack stands and checked for spark. No spark I checked and had power coming to both positive and negative on the HEI coil. I thought that was strange as I was to believe one was a ground. So after trying everything I could think of and triple checked everything I decided I would just solder the busted wires on the original igniter and put everything back to original.

The critter cut the pulser wires about 3/4 an inch from the igniter so I soldered those and heat shrinked. I also used weather heat shrink connectors on everything else repairing that igniter. Like I stated the igniter never went bad it just had really short wires. Okay put everything back to original and go to check for spark. GUESS WHAT? The starter now sticks on and there is no spark. I have to put the drive selector to N to get the starter to shut off. So I started doing some digging, a few years back I had a solenoid go bad doing this exact same thing but I can't remember if it still ran or not and if I had to put it in N however that should be new as of 3 years ago. I started to poke around with a test light and here is what I found.

If I attempt to start it and then have to kill it by going to N on the gear selector this is what I find with the test light. The D clip on the solenoid (where the yellow/red, red, and green wires go to) is faint like a bad ground not full power on the light just faint also every terminal on the voltage regulator light my tester up very bright. Now if I go to the D- terminal on the voltage regulator and ground it to itself I here the voltage regulator "click" and everything on the voltage and solenoid goes dead. Okay so if I go to start it and it sticks on and without putting the gear selector in N and just simply ground out the D- on the voltage regulator it kills everything and the engine stop attempting to turn over. One last thing I did check the ohms on the pulser coil and I am at 148 ohms.

So what do I do? I am at a loss. I believe something screwy happened with my HEI conversion and obviously fried something. I don't think I should have had power to the ground. I am done with the HEI and just want everything back to oem and my cart running again as it is now stuck in my garage. Would a bad solenoid do this and not allow spark or is the voltage regulator shot? I really don't think the igniter is bad as it ran great one day, the wires got chewed and I thought hei would have been the cheaper route. I am willing to buy all 3 new ignition parts but do not want to throw my money away if I don't have to. Please any information would really be appreciated. Thank you.

BGW

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cart around

When it was running bad, switching the red and blue wires on the pulsar probably would have fixed it.

Something feeding power to the solenoid is another story. I will have to study up after work.

oachs83

The real head scratcher is it went from getting worse and worse. So I get it in the garage it sits for 10 minutes and then no longer has spark. Why? It turns over fine and the engine stops cranking like it should with the HEI mod on. I switch everything back over to factory putting the original igniter and coil on and now no spark and does not stop cranking. What the heck? I went ahead and ordered a continuous duty 150/300 solenoid just because I had a similar problem before and I need this cart out of my garage. I just can't remember the last time the solenoid went bad if the engine ran or not?

oachs83

One thing I just figured out. If I unplug the green wire that goes from the solenoid to the positive of the coil the starter will kick off like it should. Very weird.

oachs83

So just for troubleshooting I decided to try the HEI ignitor with the factory coil. Still no spark but the starter kicks off like it is suppose to it doesn't stick. Another thing with the factory ignitor if I remove any single wire (did not try the pulser) the starter kicks off like it should. I tried checking the pulser for a half volt but I am not sure if I had my meter set right. I tried various settings on both AC and DC volts and every now and then I would get a reading sometimes .5 and sometime a bit over 1. It never stayed consistent this is turning the engine over with wheels in the air. The ohms are 148. Something seems really wonky with the igniter as with the starting dilemma. Either way I am just frustrated and feel maybe I accidentally fried something like the solenoid or the HEI ignitor. I don't understand why the voltage regulator on D- stays on till I ground it. So I ordered a new solenoid, regulator, and ignitor I just don't care. My luck it's the pulser or ignition coil. Either way a critter chewed a couple wires and now all hell has broke loose. It frustrates me that after I did the HEI it ran (not good) but at least it ran I almost have a feeling that when I left for ten fifteen minutes to get gas and remove the old gas something like the problem I now have on the regulator was stuck on and fried. It could have fried the HEI or the solenoid or anything? Now nothing, no spark.


Small update: I have no idea if this is normal but I removed the factory ignitor and started playing around with a continuity tester. I get full continuity if I clip the orange wire (negative to coil) and probe the black wire that hooks to D- on the voltage regulator. However if I reverse it and clip the black and probe the orange I get nothing so that is telling me there is a diode in the circuit there. Now here lies the interesting thing If I clip that black wire and probe the yellow/red wire that hooks to the solenoid I will get a quick flash not full strength light but a quick flash on my tester and that's it. I have to remove contact and if I probe it again it will flash once only again. It did this every time for me. Also I get very faint light if I probe each pulsar wire. I also get a faint light if I check continuity on the pulsar wires themselves. It seems weird to me and I will not know if this is normal until I have another one to compare it too. I have suspected ignitor problems from the beginning but decided to replace what I can for now just to have it new. The chances that the ignitor failed the exact same time the wires got chewed are very slim. It is possible me having to solder the wires being so close to the body of the ignitor I could have heated something up? All I can do is sit and wait I guess.

oachs83

The cart runs now. It ended up being the original ignitor as when I received the new ignitor and ran test on all the leads with my continuity tester. On the new ignitor not one of the wires light up at all. Meaning they should all be separate from each other. That was not the case with the old one as I was getting some full continuity on one wire and slight with a couple others. Here is the thing I truly believe that there is a .001% chance that ignitor went out the exact same time the wires got chewed up. Also I think maybe the ignitor was on it's way out as it would still fire but the cart seems to run better and start much easier with the new ignitor. It ran okay but I always felt like it ran rich and I had carb problems even though I put a kit in it etc. just something never felt right until now. I am thinking that a combination of a weak, old ignitor and me soldering the wires so close to the body of the ignitor may have damaged it in a goofy way. I also replaced the voltage regulator but I did not install the new starter solenoid as I was pretty sure the whole time the ignitor was the problem. Hey at least I now have a spare. Anyways bottom line it was the ignitor and happy it's fixed and out of the garage.

Now on to the HEI which I am pretty embarrassed to admit I think i found that problem. I found the black wire from post C on the starter solenoid was never hooked up to D- on the voltage regulator. What happened was that wire seemed to get caught and tucked under the solenoid when I was installing it back onto the mounting plate and it was hidden perfectly. I think that is the reason the power stayed on possibly damaging the hei ignitor. I discovered this oops when I was messing around with the original ignitor awaiting the arrival of my new one in the mail. Another thing I learned is you will get NO spark when that wire is disconnected. When I got the new parts on just out of curiosity tested what a few of those wires actual do to the cart when there not hooked up. Removing that wire from D- on the voltage regulator takes out the spark. Touch the wire to the terminal BOOM she fires right up. Which is a bit strange as it was never hooked up with the hei originally but still ran, it ran very badly but it ran for a bit. Anyways thought I would share my resolution in case someone else stumbles across this problem.