Pontiac Trans Sport and all other 3800 starter issues

I am not sure how direct of a run you can get to the starter from the headlight. It would help keep things cooler but you need to be able to evacuate the air too.  You could try a water/alochol injection onto the starter using a washer pump. If you still have the washer fluid reservoir then you have a tank. that is what people that run methanol injection do.

Can you wrap the exhaust manifold? If there isn't room fab a set of headers and wrap them?. That would resolve the issue.

I am not sure how direct of a run you can get to the starter from the headlight. It would help keep things cooler but you need to be able to evacuate the air too.  You could try a water/alochol injection onto the starter using a washer pump. If you still have the washer fluid reservoir then you have a tank. that is what people that run methanol injection do.

Any chance of water cooling the starter like they do for computer CPU's? Wrap some copper tubing around it and pump cool water around it. Activate it when you exit the track and riding down pit lane.

I can think of lots of ways to do cooling, but not sure how much space you have. That's why my first thought is wrap the exhaust and vent the hood. The hope is that you can reduce the under hood temperatures while you are driving it and protecting the starter from exhaust heat.

I just remembered how this was resolved on my friends car. I am, not sure why I didn't think of this before. It is not uncommon for it to happen on high HP chevy engines with headers. The fix was to use a remote mount starter solenoid to protect it from the heat. The solenoid is what gives you the problem. Moving the solenoid resolves the problem as well. You can try looking for a remote mount solenoid kit. You can keep the same starter but you alter the wiring.

https://www.motorstate.com/images/Instr … ng_Kit.pdf

Forget radiant 250deg heat from the engine block, focus on the 800+ exhaust , get a piece of tin between the pipe and starter to reflect some heat, also, do still have the factory clip on heat shield on the starter solenoid? if not, go find one!!!

.DEFINITELY  a fresh air duct from one of the headlights directly to the starter

Naaa   A remote controlled mister turned on when you enter the pit lane..... Water mist will be overwhelmed, starter may not like repeat watering

Naaa  Find someone that makes a truly bulletproof starter that can handle the heat of racing (GM starters of this era are not gear reduction) ... who got that kind of $$

YES....  A direct contactor of some sort that can used from the from of the car (air solenoid with copper plate)....Now your onto something!  Back in the day one would take the start solenoid signal wire and connect it directly to the battery cable 12v post 1 in away(making it a one wire starter), then go upstream, run a ford solenoid to only send power down to the starter as needed, this gives a better shot of amperage to the heat soaked GM solenoid.... only downside is you now need to make/move a new 12+ post if the starter was previously wired as a supply junction.

Don't bother with aftermarket gear reduction starters. They're junk. We went down that road a couple of times with our SBC and they wouldn't last more than a race or two. After we bought an OEM AC Delco starter we haven't had any problems in years (5 ish).

Definitely agree about the exhaust wrap, it makes a huge difference, and a thin piece of sheet metal as a heat shield will definitely make a difference. Heat from your exhaust is the problem.

Alright.....Final answer is to move the problem away from the heat!
The old chevy smallblock issue was corrected by some simple engineering.....
Tie both terminals on the starter together and split the battery cable to the starter.
Place a ford starter solenoid away from the heat and power it with the wires that originally went to the starter. I will try to find a diagram of the fix.
Manny

I agree that the heat from your block isn't the issue, it's mostly the exhaust. We used to cook a starter every year in the daytona because it sat directly under the turbo and the heat would eventually weaken the little heat-shield and let it fatigue crack and break. Hooray for lifetime warranties, we got a free one every spring.

Wrap the exhaust, wrap the starter, get a heat shield in there, do whatever you can to just keep the exhaust heat off of it.

A long time ago we had the same problem on our GM 2.8L.  We fixed it with the two solutions below:

Junk yard gear reduction starter from a later model car (early 2000s), ours came from a 3800 even though it went on a 2.8L and later 3400.  Shim adjustment was required.
Add two 0 guage ground cables, one from body to head and one from body to block.  Our power cable was already 0 guage and new.

If you still have a problem I'd check to make sure your kill switch hasn't developed too much resistance.  I had one of those die on a project car.

Good luck!