Starter Solenoid Questions?

[Gumball]

With solenoid facing you, the large terminal on the left is the battery feed. The small terminal on the left is the start signal wire from the ignition switch. The solenoid should be mounted to ground - frame or an aluminum panel that has good ground via the rivets. The right side large terminal goes to the starter and the right side small terminal on the front is for a voltage boost to the coil during "start" if you're using an old-school coil with a resistor wire that only runs 7.5v-9v during run - it gives a boost to 12v when the ignition is turned to "start." If you're running a capacitive discharge (i.e., Pertronix) ignition with a matching coil, then you don't use the small right terminal.

No cover.

[mike w]

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[Scott Zackowski]

Great discussion guys!

The Solenoid/Relay I am using is supplied by Breeze and has only three Terminals (2 Large Terminals and 1 Small). See picture below.

It is a Ford Motorcraft part (SW-1951-C or E9TZ-11450-B).

The picture shows my mock-up location. The blue wire is coming from the ignition switch. The 2 gauge cable is representing where the battery feed will connect. The other wires are coming from the FFR wiring harness and are labeled to connect to the Starter Solenoid/Relay. I then plan to connect to the starter with 4 gauge wire from the same terminal as the battery feed. Thus, the line to the starter will always be "hot". The other large terminal (currently empty) will run a 10 gauge wire to the small terminal on the actual Starter's Solenoid.

This is how the Breeze instructions lay it out. The Breeze instructions to not specify which large terminal gets what connected to it as long as the group of connecting wires are correct. Making me believe the large terminal are interchangeable. Seems to make sense now that I understand better how the Solenoid/Relay works.

Also grounding the metal backing to the metal frame with the same gauge as the blue ignition wire makes sense.

Thoughts?

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