Powermaster Starter and Flywheel Engagement

[garyv]

Doing some final inspection on my TP engine and checked the engagement of the starter gear with my flywheel and the starter gear
does not engage the full width of the ring gear.  I took it apart and made sure there wasn't a shim behind the starter mounting plate.
I have a Quick Time bell and block plate.  I don't see anything I can change to make it fully engage.
Is this acceptable? 

Thanks
garyv

[cjshaker]

How much is it engaging? Half, 3/4? I've used a couple Powermaster starters without issues, and it's not uncommon to not have 100% engagement, but they did seem to engage the majority of the tooths width. The only issue I had with one was when driving for 200-300 miles during Drag Week, then it would not engage fully after a short stop and heat soak set in.

[garyv]

It engages about half way.
I talked to Brent about and he seemed to think it would be ok but I wanted to hear from some of you and your experiences
with these starters.

Thanks
garyv

[jayb]

I've noticed the same problem on at least one of my Powermaster starters.  I went to the extreme of taking it apart and machining the mounting flange down a little, to get more complete engagement between the ring gear and the starter gear.  On a high compression (13:1) large (511") FE, the starter would tend to tear up the front half of the ring gear after a while, kind of rounding off or chipping the teeth.   After I machined it I got almost full engagement of the gears, and no more problems.  My guess is that the starter as-is would work fine for most FE engines, despite the poor engagement with the flywheel, but if you are running a big engine or a lot of compression, there could be trouble.

I've gone to RobbMc starters now, because they have that shaft support available like a stock starter, and you also get full engagement of the gear. 

[garyv]

Jay thanks for your reply.  I was wondering if a RobbMc starter wouldn't work better.
My engine is 511 cubes and a little over 11:1 compression and I'm not really comfortable with the way this looks when engaged.
I think over time it will damage the ring gear.
Once again I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

garyv