Hello Thirdgener’s,

Once on a cold start and quite a few times on hot starts the starter has not engaged, just “clicks” once. On the cold start I just tried again and it started. On the hot starts I have had to wait 15 minutes or so to get the starter to engage. I’m thinking of just replacing the entire starter and solenoid with a new one. When I got under the car to check it out it looks like it has a smaller starter than it should. I can literally see the teeth of the flywheel where it would seem the starter housing should be covering. I don’t know much about the car as I didn’t build it. It is a 1990 IROC with a G92 code. Original 700R4 has been swapped to a t56. The original 350 is supposedly stroked to 383. It has shorty ceramic coated headers with air tubes. All I can make out on the block is casting 088. Can anyone tell me if a standard over the counter replacement starter will fit/work for this application?

Thanks for your time,
Ted

 

That starter isn't a stock one. It's a Hitachi-based "mini-starter".

I think once you see a stock one, you'll figure out you don't want it. It's about twice that size and weighs about 3 times as much. Plus, there's a good possibility it won't even turn your motor over reliably.

Buy a good quality one somewhat similar to what you've got. There's DOZENS of them available. Stay away from the cheeeeeeeeeep ebay crap. Summit & Jeg's for example have several entire product lines of those.

 

It looks like a better starter than the stock one. The stock one would fill the hole but it would sit a lot lower. You want the starter as far from the exhaust pipes as possible so it doesn't get overheated and lock up.

 

So it’s okay to have a hole in the housing like that? There isn’t a filler plate or something?

 

You could make a sheet metal plate to cover that hole if it bothers you. Use the bolt that is covered by your red arrow in the pic.

It looks like the starter is right up against the header. Not good for starting a hot engine.
That starter can be indexed - meaning that you could remove the 2 bolts holding the motor to it's mounting block and rotate it either way to try to get better clearance. There is a selection of bolt holes to allow for different setups.

 

Okay, I will try to index it first and see if that takes care of it. The hole is okay I guess, just wanted to make sure it was “standard” to have like that.

 

Replaced it with a remanded LT1 starter from a 96 Vette I picked up at Autozone with a lifetime warranty. It covers that awful gap and works well. Thanks for your help.

Ted

 

How difficult was it to wire up the LT-1 starter?...

 

My vehicle was already equipped with a remote starter solenoid. All I did was un-bolt the old starter and bolt in the new one (in stock at Autozone). I had to get a longer starter switch cable (in stock at Oreilly) because the one that was there didn’t reach the new terminal location. I also got new starter bolts (in stock at Oreilly) as the ones that were there for my aftermarket starter were not the correct length. It was a very simple swap.

Ted