cowboys647 Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 Hey guys, I purchase a wrecked gto for my transplant that ran and drove for my swap. Drove the car prior to pulling the engine and the key fob has been broken this whole time. Now we can't even get the engine to crank over. We have power where it needs to be, but for some reason we aren't getting power to the starter. From what I've been reading, VATS could be an issue but I haven't found any way to figure out if thats the problem or not. Does Vats disable cranking or will it just disable the fuel injectors? Kinda at my wits end at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatwad Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 The engine should still crank around, but not start. Perhaps a ground is either not connected or there's a bad ground somewhere too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSB_11 Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 Have you tested your starter? Just a thought. I don't know how you have your starter ran but is your solenoid burnt out? Is there power on both sides? Ground good? Like I'm sure you know.it's not that complex of a system so it might be in the vats. What method are you using for the vats removal and ecu tune? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowboys647 Posted December 27, 2014 Author Share Posted December 27, 2014 Checked and rechecked the grounds and they seem to be good. Jumped the starter over manually and it cranks over fine so that's not burnt out. Everything in the starting circuit seems to be working and hooked up correctly which leads me to think that it may be some anti theft nonsense. Right now we have everything in the z and are just trying to get the engine running with the stock ecu and not messing with vats at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Gadsby Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 I know on a Grand Am, similar thing happened and it was indeed the VATS. Had to do a 10 min stint with the key in the on position to reset the system, and BAM, car started. Worth a try. I would do 15 minutes since I am sure you don't have a light that will go off. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwine automotive Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 On the GTO vats is part of the bcm you will need to have it programed out of your pcm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Gadsby Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 Good to know, thanks. (Have a GTO ecu) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowboys647 Posted December 28, 2014 Author Share Posted December 28, 2014 I have the little locked car icon on the dash of the car with the lock and I tried leaving the ignition switch on for 11 minutes but I couldn't get rid of it. How do you guys disable the vats in the bcm? Do you buy tuning software or send the ecu off? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Gadsby Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 Send off or I think HP Tuner would be able to disable. Pretty sure there are some guys that don't pretty cheap for swaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zfan1 Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 We had to delete/disable VATS on my swap as well otherwise it wouldn't crank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpndave Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 It sounds like you have a few things going on. Who reworked your harness? Are you trying to go through the GTO original harness and PCM to trigger the starter? I would go straight to the starter for that wire, not through the GM harness. The PCM will need to be flashed for it to run. You don't need the body module for engine operation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpndave Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 HP tuners or EFI live can disable the VATS and set your parameters to what you need in the Z. We have both here but usually use HP Tuners. Depending on how you have your engine wired, you'll want VATS disabled, tire size and gear ratio set, speed input set depending on what you have for VSS, emissions turned off if you aren't running it, tach set to a 6 cylinder out probably (4 hi and 4 low on a Gen 3, Gen 4 is a little fussier as 58 isn't easily divided by 6 but 5 high and 5 low gets you close enough). On the Gen 3 it's possible to get full operation out of the PCM only, even cruise. I deal with this stuff every day. Let me know if I can help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowboys647 Posted December 29, 2014 Author Share Posted December 29, 2014 Right now we just have the gto harness in the z but it's unmolested so far. We just wanted to get the engine running before moving on. Didn't think about anti theft stuff stopping us from starting it. Well that's definitely a relief because we were at our wits end thinking maybe our pcm went bad during the swap or something. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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