I have a 91 civic wagon with a b20, and I am using a Rywire OBD-1 harness. I am pretty sure the starter is fine because it worked on the previous owners b16a swap which I pulled and sold.

Basically how I have it set up right now is I have a the battery located in my trunk. I ran a 2 gauge wire from the postive terminal straight to my starter motor. Than I have a return power wire from the same spot on the starter motor back to the fuse box. I have a ground from my transmission clutch bracket to the frame, a ground from the valve cover to the rad support, and a ground by the thermostat.

Everything seems to be plugged in on the motor is the correct spots besides my Vehicle speed sensor and rev sensor. I am just running the cable sensor instead so I do not have to change clusters.

When I turn the key the car beep and every the blower motor works etc, so the electrical is working. What should I try to do now?

 

Have you tried a roll start? Assuming it's a manual transmission here. If a roll start works, that would eliminate a lot of possible problems.

 

No I actually have not tried that yet. I dont have my rotors, brake pads, calipers , drive shafts hooked up atm. I guess I could put that stuff all back together and try a roll start.

 

I'd say try throwing that stuff all on and give it a shot. If it starts with a roll start, that means you either have something wrong with the starter, ignition switch, starter solenoid, etc...shortens the list a lot.

 

I took a multimeter to the wire that sends the signal to turn engage the starter when you turn the key to start. It was getting no power what so ever. Then I tried to jumper my starter and it started to smoke from above my clutch pedal on the spring there. So there has to be a bad ground somewhere. I can not seem to see which ground is bad or missing. I assumed if there is a bad ground the roll start option won't work either.

 

You shouldn't need to roll start to start your car if you hook everything up right.

 

So what could be the cause of it grounding above the clutch pedal when I try to jumper my starter. The starter just clicks, but does not turn the engine. Also I have that wire that sends the spark to the starter to engage it when you turn the key, but there is no voltage at that wire what so ever.

I have spliced my Rywire harness to my factory ecu plugs like it says so. I plugged my rywire plugs inside my car to the correct factory plugs. I plugged everything in the bay as well. I am getting power inside the car cause the blower motor works, car beeps when the key is set to on, etc. Just can't get it to turn over.

Im thinking it might be a bad ground in the engine bay. I have my 3 grounds in my engine bay too. Still I can not figure out why that wire is getting no power.
-Clutch bracket to frame
-valve cover to rad support
-And the ground by the thermostat(part of the rywire harness)
Am I missing any grounds?

My power distribution is right also.

 

If you think it might be a ground issue, take a jumper cable and hook on of the cables directly from battery NEG and clip the other end to the housing of the starter. This will be a good strong ground so you can figure things out.

 

The starter only has 2 wires (maybe 1 but I don't remember) running to it. Make sure that connection is good. As far as grounds go. Make sure the transmission ground that grounds below the stock battery location and connects to the area around the clutch lever is there. If it's not, that's your problem.

 

Has anyone found a solution for this