Did I wire this wrong?

[RyanB]

I've been chasing down why my stbd engine (crusader 454) keeps back firing, when trying to start. I had replaced everything electrical, in hopes that it would fix - not luck. I then read the upgraded electronic dist. I installed and found out I had to remove the ballast resistor to offer full 12V to the coil.

Laying there one night I was trying to think of what could have possibly changed, after all the boat ran to the slip, then never left. It dawned on me that I did wire in a new paneltronics panel to run my riggers, wash down pumps etc. I used a free 100 amp breaker in my engine room battery panel, to supply the power to the sub panel. Figuring it couldn't hurt, I disconnected everything, and the motor fired up immediately. Now, I did do this in conjunction with the ballast resistor removal, not smart I know, but what are the chances?? The panel was wired in and the motor never fired up since..... just took me a month to figure that out!

Please take a look at the below pics, did I wire this incorrectly, and cause the back fire? I wouldn't think the negative or ground would matter as its all on the same bar, but I'll admit that I'm learning all this. The more I think about it, the more it seemed like a bad/faulty ground problem I circled my wire connections in red in the first pic.

If wired incorrectly, how should it be fixed?

Feels great to finally be off the dock...... but now have an AC pump to fix/replace.

 

[jim rosenthal]

I'm not sure if this will be of help, but years ago I discovered that the ground wires back to that bus had to be the same gauge as all the wires supplying current to the 12volt dc systems. I had a charging problem and found out (after a lot of looking) that the returns from the batteries had to be the same size as the charging wires. That said, it's hard to imagine why the additional circuit you installed would have anything to do with the engine starting or not starting.

 

[Pascal]

What is that green wire there that you circled? I understand the red and the black being pos and neg but I don’t see why you also have a ground wire there. Green is for ground in the AC wiring.

Also, while black is still accepted for negative wires using yellow is recommended to avoid any possible confusion with the black wires used for hot/line in AC 120/240v wiring

 

[barkdee]

Check the wiring to your tachometer.

 

[RyanB]

What is that green wire there that you circled? I understand the red and the black being pos and neg but I don’t see why you also have a ground wire there. Green is for ground in the AC wiring.

Also, while black is still accepted for negative wires using yellow is recommended to avoid any possible confusion with the black wires used for hot/line in AC 120/240v wiring

I tired like hell to find a yellow negative wire in the correct gauge, but like almost anything in 2021 it wasn't available. Not even our West Marine could order it in for me.

Here is the wiring diagram from Paneltronics, where it says to run to DC grounding system. I thought it was weird too, but the label on the buss in my ER battery panel, says "Neg & GRD" - so I thought it would be correct.

I'm going to try to leave the ground off and see what happens. As long as I don't pump the throttle, it isn't backfiring.