[trudellt]

Well, I'm on the road again.

I had a couple of hours this weekend to put in a new starter.

Some advice for anybody purchasing a new starter (for a 460/514 anyway): Don't buy the Ford Motorsport version. It has a 1/4" male spade terminal for the ignition input. Cheesy. The old version with the threaded stud and ring terminal was superior. To make matters worse, the new unit ships with a harness - and it has the wrong terminals on it!!! What a waste of money. Shame on you Visteon. I have an electronics lab at my fingertips, so I can make my own quality, high-temp cables. For what I paid though, I should have received a "ready-to-go" harness. Even if the terminals to the relay are unkown, the cabling should at least mate to the starter on one end, right??? Just the engineer in me coming out - sorry.

On a positive note, I'm surprised how fast my car starts now. Just a quick "flick" of the ignition switch and it's up and running! I used to have to hold it for a full second or more. It now starts better than my STS (Take that GM!)

The old starter had some bearing damage which was slowing it down (and draining the heck out of my battery). The chowed pinion teeth didn't help much, either.

I've heard that extreme heat from the headers kills these things prematurely. Some guys actually fabricate heat shields.

Just some ideas...