[cwmcobra]

Byron,

I just saw your edit to the previous post about the Lakewood bellhousing:

"Also, the root-cause of this problem (according to and old timer at Tilton) is that Lakewood used an FE flyweel when mocking up their bellhousing design and has yet to fix it."

This was the path I started down, talking to Lakewood, Ford Racing and McLeod. In fact, I was all set to find a 184 tooth flywheel to replace the 176 tooth gear that I have. I turns out that the number of teeth is pretty immaterial, since the diameters of Ford flywheels, no matter how many teeth, are within about 0.020". This was all a great mystery to me until I talked with Robb and we started down the correct path of analysis. Confirming that the registration diameter on the Lakewood blockplate is in the correct location was a huge benefit and the fix fell into place after that.

I've long been blaming Lakewood for the problem, but now can blame every starter manufacturer that does not use the stock Ford design with centered pinion and the correct number of pinion teeth.

I'm a happy camper!

Chuck