I have swapped a 1994 460 into my 1979 Bronco and I'm at the point where I can finally try and start it for the first time.

I bought a new battery, wired my electric fuel pump to a toggle switch and tried to fire it up but it cranks really slow.

I'm thinking I don't have good contact with my battery cables so I'll try and fix that first but i'm not sure why its cranking so slow with a new battery and a "new" starter that was installed last year and not used until now.

Any ideas?

 

Verify the battery connections on both ends. Especially the ground cable connection to the engine block.

 

X2 what RLA2005 said. Would be an excellent time to run 2/0 cable to your starter and battery to eliminate any cable problem!

Also make sure you don't have it to far advanced, that you set the timing correctly.

 

ok battery cable to the engine block fixed that problem.

Now it still wont start and I don't have spark or power at the distributor. I might not have power to the ecu I'll have to get a pinout and check that.
Also not all of the ground wires from the truck wiring harness are grounded to the Bronco body. Would that affect distributor wiring or fuel injectors?

The distributor has not been touched or moved since the donor truck was driven and the engine yanked out of it. It drove 50 miles home perfectly before it was pulled.

 

Yes it can