I'm going to start with a lil background info first I suppose to help set the diagnosis in the right direction

I have a 95' lude 2.3L non-Vtec (Black.. lol) and back in March 09' it threw a couple valves.. . I took the head off and inspected the cylinders and there where some deep scrapes in the cylinder wall from where the valve was rolling around in the cylinder as well as it blowing a whole through one of the piston heads.

So, it sat until last weekend when I started a swap and put another of the same engine it it. Everything went as planned during the swap except a small knick in the radiator. So, at this point I had the engine all back together and it took a lil bit to get the engine started but after a few tries it did turn over and run fine. I did not go for a long test drive because of the radiator leak but after driving around for a few minutes it did start to get hot so I sat for a few minutes and let it cool down some and then when it cooled down I started it back up and drove home. I parked in the driveway and jacked it up on the cross member in the front to do a final check of the suspension and check for leaks and such. Everything looked good so I lowered the car and went inside for some much needed R&R after what seemed a triumphant experience.

Later that day I came out to move the lude back into the garage and i put the key in the ignition and tried to start it but when I move the key to the start position I get nothing.. .

It's acting like it does when you do not press the clutch pedal in during start. In the on position all the dash lights come on and stay on. The CEL comes on and goes off as expected after a couple of seconds when the key moves to the on position and does not come back while attempting to start. The headlights do not dim when I turn the key to start either so I decided to check all the fuses both under-hood and under-dash and found one missing for the ECU (weird cause that never caused a problem before). I put the recommended amp fuse in the position and still same scenario, no crank. I then moved on to the starter. I put a voltmeter on the signal of the starter and I do not get a signal there when I turn the key to the start position. So, for the heck of it I put the key in the on position and use a jumper wire to the starter signal from the battery and the car starts up and runs fine. Then I turned the car off and started to focus my attention on the portion of the starter circuit that was between the ignition switch and the starter signal wire.

This first thing I did after this is to jump the clutch pedal sensor by unplugging it and placing a jumper wire between the 2 pins. This did not solve my problem so I decided to diagnose if it was the master relay. I read there are supposed to be 3 clicks from the relay and I listened for these and I was not able to hear the first click because of the chiming when you turn the key to the on position but I could for sure hear the second one after the CEL turns off and then I could also here the third click when you move the key to the start position.

So I assumed at this point it was not the main relay and moved on to test the ignition switch even though I assumed it was ok since I heard the third click when the key is moved to the start position. I pulled the ignition switch out and used some jumper wires on the back of it to attempt a hot-wire start. I run through some test scenarios and got all the same results as before. The dash lights would all come on and stay on and when I tapped the start circuit on the ignition switch with voltage I could again hear the third click from the main relay but the car would not crank. I'm starting to get a lil frustrated at this point cause I'm starting to run out of ideas of things to check.

I decided to pull the main relay out from under the dash up by the steering column just to check for some of those elusive broken solder joints I have read about.. I know everything seemed to work with it so far so this should not have been necessary, but like I said.. running out of ideas.. lol. The relay can be quite tricky to get out from under the dash without removing the dash but the best trick I found to avoid that is it's mounted on a small metal bracket so you can push the whole relay towards the engine bay and bend the bracket a lil which will allow you enough clearance to get a 10mm wrench up in there (it helps if your closed end of your wrench ratchets as well ). So, I popped that bad boy open and to no avail all the solder joints look just fine and I have done my fair share of electronics repair over the years and can at least say I know what a broken solder joint looks like.. lol. So, back in the main relay goes.

It's been a couple days of diagnosing now and I still have not located the source of my problem. The only couple of things that I can think of that might be causing an issue is maybe a wire is shorted or open somewhere in the engine bay possibly melted cause of the engine getting hot. Another question I had is if the ECU comes into play anywhere between the ignition switch and the starter signal as I have not done anything to diagnose this yet.

Please help, this was my first engine swap done at home and would love to get my baby running again so I can start some modding. Any ideas anyone has are greatly appreciated

 

I actually just came across this same problem and mine was the battery cable because i was getting 9.1 -9.6 volts to the ignition switch but i was not getting anything to the starter. Try jumping the car and see if that works

 

I know it sounds stupid but you gotta check the little things

 

i believe there is another relay on the starter circuit between the ignition sw and the main relay... it should be under the dash right next to the main relay

 

Thanks for the input, it is greatly appreciated.

I am going to try and locate that other relay and check it out as well.

Also, I checked my voltages at the ignition switch previously and I am also seeing the 9 volts there that you mentioned. I have attempted to jump the car as well with a charger/starter, sorry I forgot to mention that. I had the same results when using the start function on my charger and checked the battery connections to ensure they are tight.

Keep the good ideas comming, and I'll keep you posted