The starter is the last thing you might consider when building a trick new engine. It's pretty hard to make any power at all if your engine won't crank. Tuning changes can also affect starters. Ignition advance, especially in a car with a locked-out distributor, can make starting difficult. Too much initial advance will fire the mixture when the piston is moving up the bore under compression.

Starter noise is another common, but slightly more difficult, problem to cure. Typically, a new starter will make noise when it's positioned too close to the ring gear on the flexplate or fidanza flywheel. Installing thin, steel shims between the block and starter is the method to eliminate the noise.

Another problem that may cause starter noise is an out-of-round flexplate. This happens most often with the thin, low-dollar flexplates. The only cure for this problem is to purchase a high-quality flexplate.

Header heat can kill starters. The starter has been rotated all the way down so it hugs the oil pan for header clearance. Not all mini-starters can be clocked in multiple positions, so be careful what you buy.

The flexplate can be the cause of many starter woes. The high-tech flexplate features a replaceable ring gear and aluminum CNC-machined center. It's important to measure wobble on any new flexplate as shown. More than 0.050 inch is bad.

It's also important to measure runout on new and used flexplates. To do this properly, first mark off your ring gear in several equal parts. Then measure the gear teeth at each mark. Used ring gears may show more erratic readings then new ones, so it's best to check and log your results each time the engine is out of the car.