how to fire up a motor?????

[rhodog77]

hey guys,

im sure for some of you guys this is a no brainer but I need some help. I have a 350 in my truck and need to know how to fire it up. I have not rewired my truck yet but just wanted to hear the motor run for a second. I know that I need to run a battery cable from the positive side of the battery to the starter and a battery cable from the ground side of the battery to a good ground. I know that I need to wire a jumper up to the coil/distributor but Im not sure which wire to clip to. My question is how do I wire the distributor/coil. there are 4 wires coming from the coil pack (labeled A,B,C, and D) and 3( 1 red and 2 black ) wires coming from the bottom of the distributor cap. I dont want to fry the coil so i need to make sure that I hook into the right wire. I hope this makes sense. Any help would be appreciated.

[mr48chev]

Fresh engine or an engine with some hours/miles on it?

Fi or carb?

Computer engine or non computer engine If it has an HEI does the Hei have a vacuum advance on it?

I only looked on the first page of your photobucket link but didn't see a 350 to know what you have.

I found the photo on page 2


It will work better if you have some sort of switch but you can do it by hooking up the battery to the starter and a ground on the engine adn then hooking a wire from the Batt pin on the distributor to the + post on the battery and one that you can go from the S post on the starter (purple wire if the wire is still on it) to crank the engine. A bit of fuel in the float bowl or a line from the fuel pump to a small container of gas and it should crank and run but be ready to pull the ign wire off the battery or put a switch in that wire. I've run a lot of engines with a toggle switch for an ignition switch and a pushbutton starter switch to crank the engine.

If you haven't stripped everything off the engine yet I think I can see the red wire to the distributor (about 10 gage) and the purple wire still going to the starter so you can tie into them and make it work.

And I have in the past run engines like that hanging from a chain hoist but they like to jump around a bit. Did it to prove to some of my students that it could be done once.