2G Won't Start When Cold

[4G63_GSX]

I have a 95 GSX which just had a complete rebuild done to it by ums tuning in arizona.all the mods are up to date in my profile. I live in kansas due to the military, the car runs great, idles great, everything is good except i cant get it to start in the mornings.i have a mini oddesy battery that puts out 280cca and seeing that it is winter and i leave my house at 5am it is usually 13 degrees outside. i mentioned this to my tuning shop and they told me to get a battery tender, i ran this by a buddy of mine that had a similar problem with his supra and he told me to get a battery booster and to replace my current batter to starter cable with a 0 gauge cable. i was thinking of getting a yellow top optima but then i would have to relocate that battery because my engine bay is to compact and a also have a strut bar. any help or suggestions would be great before i go out and spend money on something i dont need or that wont help solve my issue. i know preformance engines dont like cold starts but i dont think 280cca is enough to do anything.

 

[Diamond Star Werks]

280cc is like a lawn mower battery. Find a better battery for your car. STM offers a pretty good slim battery. Try checking theirs out.

280cc is like a lawn mower battery. Find a better battery for your car. STM offers a pretty good slim battery. Try checking theirs out.

STM: SMALL BATTERY KIT | 2G DSM 95-99

 

[4G63_GSX]

i wont order from stm their company sucks and they dont stand behind their products. customer service is shitty to. i ordered almost 5k worth of parts and wouldnt bother to give me my money back on some injectors that they sold me broken.

 

[zonerdck]

Based on what your saying I am going to assume that you have a no crank situation in the morning. If not explain little more are you able to crank but the motor won't turn over?

1: Do you have dash lights?

2: Do you hear anything when turning the key to the start position?

3: Check the battery with a volt meter motor running and not running.

Get back to us and we can help a lot more. If you have dash lights its could be a connection issue. If no dash lights It could still be a connection issue but would help rule out the starter kind of. Your buddy thinks it might be a low voltage situation on the battery which could be but without checking you really wouldn't know.

 

[4G63_GSX]

Based on what your saying I am going to assume that you have a no crank situation in the morning. If not explain little more are you able to crank but the motor won't turn over?

1: Do you have dash lights?

2: Do you hear anything when turning the key to the start position?

3: Check the battery with a volt meter motor running and not running.

Get back to us and we can help a lot more. If you have dash lights its could be a connection issue. If no dash lights It could still be a connection issue but would help rule out the starter kind of. Your buddy thinks it might be a low voltage situation on the battery which could be but without checking you really wouldn't know.

yes it cranks just very slowly like the battery doesnt have enough balls to start my car and its a brand new battery, yes i have dash lights and all my connections are good and i know the starter is good because well i have never had a problem starting it only when its cold out. as for hearing anything when i turn the key, ya it it cranks no start but when its warm it starts

 

[Diamond Star Werks]

i wont order from stm their company sucks and they dont stand behind their products. customer service is shitty to. i ordered almost 5k worth of parts and wouldnt bother to give me my money back on some injectors that they sold me broken.

That's a bunch of sh#t dude. Sorry to hear that just making a suggestion. But yeah judging from your sit-rap your battery really doesn't have the balls for a cold start. Just need to get a better battery. If i wasn't about to go home I'd find one for you. If it were a charging problem obviously it would do it more often if not all the time. Good luck.

 

[zonerdck]

Ahh I see did you charge the battery before putting it in the car because a small deep cycle like the odyssey will definitely need it. Although 280 cca may seem like a small figure compared to a lot of other batteries with a larger rating but electronically speaking if the battery meets that spec it should be plenty of amperage to start the car and then some. Our cars draw way less than that while starting somewhere in the 100 amp range or so.

Here is the oddesy owners manual which shows that the lower the temp the longer the battery will hold the charge. And at 13 degrees you dont even begin to come close to the lower operating range (-40f) which is what makes me think something else might be going on.

http://www.odysseybattery.com/documents/US-ODY-OM-009_0611.pdf

If the battery performed this way constantly I would say the battery was bad but you said it works once the car is warm. Multiple things can cause this and some will only show up when its really cold. You might think its because the car is cold and harder to start but this might not be 100% true or maybe it is but its worth checking out before buying a new battery.

 

[4G63_GSX]

ya its something i have never personally run into before but i do know a buddy of mine has the same problem in his supra and he lives in arizona and i know that in the mornings it is chilly but not as cold as kansas. like i stated in a previous post he replaced his cables with 0 gauge but he's got an optima.

 

[Diamond Star Werks]

ya its something i have never personally run into before but i do know a buddy of mine has the same problem in his supra and he lives in arizona and i know that in the mornings it is chilly but not as cold as kansas. like i stated in a previous post he replaced his cables with 0 gauge but he's got an optima.

Well if it is indeed your battery best way to test is to stick a voltmeter on it overnight. If the battery is good it should not go down that far. Just unhook your neg battery cable. If it doesn't go down much, should not drop more than a volt or less than 11 volts overnight, and you can re-hook your cable in the morning and fire your car right up. Then you know your battery is good but something on your car is draining it over night.

 

[4G63_GSX]

I know this is off the topic but this morning i went out to do some preventative maintainence and this isnt the first time i have seen this and can not figure out for the life of me where this coolant is coming from because their are no coolant lines above this area and i havent started the car for a about 2 or 3 days i was thinking maybe the coolant line to the throttle body but i dont know

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[GofaST4life]

Just a thought. Maybe over spill? From the last time you filled it?

 

[4G63_GSX]

its possible with the cold as well it could have but my overfill tank isnt close to that location either is the tube.

i couldnt post my video of the original post but here is the link..

VID_20120121_090402.3gp - YouTube

let me know what you guys think

also i might add that i do have an aftermarket single DIN pioneer deck, i went to autozone just now and they tested my battery said it was good but needed to be recharged. i think my deck is draining my battery because all the wires were cut where the radio was and i had to repair them all. so i had to run a hot wire from the positive battery terminal to the 12v constant power to the radio. i dont know if that will fix my problem but we will see still open to ideas by the way

 

[Diamond Star Werks]

Well you can try running your car till it gets good and hot then shut it off. Then go and check and see if you can't see it pissing out anywhere. Could be a pin hole leaking pissing over onto there. And some small holes won't leak as much until you turn it off and the pressures builds due to the stopped flow of coolant. And with a the 12v constant run straight to your radio from the battery it would probably be whats draining your battery as it seems from what you say to be taking a charge just fine. Unhook that wire and if it doesn't do it then problem solved. But yeah I would probably say that's way it won't start in the mornings.

 

[4G63_GSX]

Well you can try running your car till it gets good and hot then shut it off. Then go and check and see if you can't see it pissing out anywhere. Could be a pin hole leaking pissing over onto there. And some small holes won't leak as much until you turn it off and the pressures builds due to the stopped flow of coolant. And with a the 12v constant run straight to your radio from the battery it would probably be whats draining your battery as it seems from what you say to be taking a charge just fine. Unhook that wire and if it doesn't do it then problem solved. But yeah I would probably say that's way it won't start in the mornings.

except the fact that i posted this because i cant start my car the battery just gives up. i had autozone charge it last night and when i picked it up i had them test it just to check before i left and they said it was 100% charged. went home and installed it and it was deffinetly a difference but it was a no go. a couple pops from the exhaust but no start, then the battery just took a poop. a big fat poop. i dont know what could be causing this. i already took my radio completely out of the car so the only thing drawing power should be just the car itself.

 

[Colt4G63 also]

What happens if you try a normal battery, like say 600-800cca? I have never heard of a car battery only being rated for 280cca. In the video it definitely sounds like a dead battery, but I have read no mention of how many volts it shows.

 

[4G63_GSX]

What happens if you try a normal battery, like say 600-800cca? I have never heard of a car battery only being rated for 280cca. In the video it definitely sounds like a dead battery, but I have read no mention of how many volts it shows.

well to be honest my dumbass never got a volt gauge just every other gauge their was , but i couldnt tell you this is the only battery that my car has ran on since its been built. car was not running when i bought it b4 the build by the way so i dont know. i did just think of taking a battery out of my other car tmrw and giving an update then.

today i jumped off my car and it cranked like a mofo but no start so i decided to check the 3 main things. im getting air, getting fuel and spark but when i took my plugs out they were soaked in gas i dont know why.

 

[Colt4G63 also]

You ECU might think your coolant temp is -50. That will always cause flooding on cold starts. Or maybe it's just flooded from cranking it with a dead battery all those times.

 

[4G63_GSX]

You ECU might think your coolant temp is -50. That will always cause flooding on cold starts. Or maybe it's just flooded from cranking it with a dead battery all those times.

I wish I would have known that before. I had my tuning shop send me a couple different maps for my standalone and now it fires right up no problem. Basically changed it for colder weather and less fuel