spinning engine over before firing with the key
 

been wondering if anyone else has heard of this, motor wants to crank hard on the starter with the key, been told to add a remote starter button hit it to get it cranking then hit the switch to make it fire heard it helps on starters,anyone else ever heard this.

Unless this motor is 14 to 1 compression this should not be necessary. Sounds like the timing is set too fast.

Bad battery cables, poor grounds, and bad connection in battery switches and terminals can cause this too. Many times the copper wires will corrode right inside the insulation with no apparent problems just looking at them. I had a set of cables on my boat that had clear insulation on them, and after a year or two they were green with corrosion. The current travels across the outside of the wires, so this corrosion causes increased resistance.

It is true that too much initial advance can make it hard to turn an engine over, but check the simple things too. Also, you can accomplish basically the same thing by simply pulling the lanyard, spin the starter, and then click it on to fire it. I have done this several times when I ran my batteries down too far with the stereo or fridge.

we used to have to do this with race cars that had lots of compression and a locked dist, if you are close to stock compression, even with a locked dist should be fine, do recommend using a good gear reduction starter and good quality battery..

its only 10.5 to 1 comp, ive been thru 2 starters, ran fine just starts like a *****, ive changed cables, grounds, etc. just something isnt right.

What type of starter are you using?

We used to do this to bring oil pressure up before firing......never heard anything about starters

I do this when engines have been sitting for a while - like after winter storage.

More importantly what are your cam specs? I'm running 10.1:1 with a locked distributor at 34 degrees and a stock Mercury starter. I have a big cam and it bleeds off cylinder pressure at low rpm. I do get the motor cranking before I hit the gas, but I'm carbureted which makes a difference over EFI.

If you run your batteries almost dead and the engines won't turn over fast enough to catch - Pop the kill switch and turn the key to get them rolling and push in the button and they fire right up.