Was it heat soak: Tough and no start on Pontiac engine

[Bill Boyle]

The location of the Pontiac engine starter has always be problem on my 79 TA.  After spending years restoring the car to be mostly a show car, I attended a car show in the early part of this year (2022) and drove 12 miles to the venue.  I parked and then was immediately asked to move the car to a different spot.  I hopped in the car and "nothing."  No start, no engine turn over...nothing.  The car looked like a million bucks but would not start. I live in South Florida so, it's alway 80 degrees and the engine temperature was only 185.  Luckily I was able to jump it with a portable "sparky" I took with me on this outing.  After the show, the car started right up and I drove the car home.  I pulled into the garage and shut the engine off and sat there for a minute and could not start up the engine.  I believed it was heat soak.  Annoyed as hell because of the expensive Jet Hot ceramic coating on my headers to protect high heat, I decided to get shielding to wrap my starter.  In addition, I decided to replace the battery cable and battery.  I purchased these items and installed each of them. BINGO all good again. I have a conventional starter by the way. 

The bottom line: If you have a new starter, new battery, quality headers in place and the beast doesn't want to start after running at normal temperature, it's probably bad electrical wiring.  In my case, the wiring to the starter was 43 years old! 

[Zach]

I wrangled a lot with a random no start issue. Ended up being my clutch saftey switch, which rests on the clutch peddle. It wasn't engaging properly so I took it out and cleaned the contacts and haven't had an issue since. My new starter that I bought cause of this also has a hard time starting when up to temp and lopes, seems to be a heating issue.

[tajoe]

I like  the fact you insulated your starter motor housing. Had a similar problem many moons ago, with my 65 GTO. Started fine when cool, but once heated, slo to no start. Had the starter rebuilt, and wrapped it in cork, problem solved. Doug Thorley 4 tube hedders ran really close to it. Plus I was stationed in Ark. at the time. The shop that rebuilt the starter, said they "double wound" the windings. Didn't know that was possible.

[djustice]

I have had the same issue since i bougth the car back in 2012. I have gradually done upgrades and trying to fix my issues 1 by 1.
Headers wrapped , Startermotor Wrapped, starter is a summit ministarter "permatorque"
This year i had an the motor out to change cam, heads and intake.
While the motor was out i bougth 50 MM2 cabling and brass eye terminals, hydraulic crimped and heatshrinked the cables.
Both posistive and negative direct to battery, Grounded the negative cable to the motormount bolt.
All hotstart problems went away instantly!

[roadking77]

Had the same problem with my 77. A/T, 400 slightly warmed over with a bit of a cam, RA II exhaust. After running for a bit it was very hesitant upon starting. I bought a heat wrap for the stock starter and hoped for the best. It still was a bit of a struggle when the motor was hot. One night at a cruise/show it was dead Had to get towed home. Next day had a Summit mini starter installed with the heat wrap and have not had a problem since. In fact it starts really strong now. After about 4 years I am just now starting to get over the fear of it not starting when I park.