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I think you can also get a smaller starter. I forget the model, but some other GM deal like a truck etc.
I looked at it and it seems the truck starter isn't so much smaller that it makes a difference. The width and proximity to the turbo is what's getting me, length is not. The truck starter DOES have a full height ear though.....but I may have clearance issues if I were to put that in.
Ok, so for those of you with APS kits.....you CAN remove the starter without taking down the nagasaki noisy boy on the passenger side.
Time to get busy:
Hmmm......I feel like this might be a problem.
So that explains the no start and starter slipping.
Flywheel is ok, picking up a new starter today and may get back out to my buddies to get it back in today too. I have two small oil leaks and one small water leak to address also. One turbo sump has a pinhole leak at an end of the tank.....JB weld will fix that. The other sump seems to be leaking from the gasket......that's warranting a further look. And one turbo coolant fitting is leaking from the crush washer. Going to try to snug that one up some. Other than that, the car should be good to go tomorrow or Saturday.
Obviously, I'm not putting a short ear starter back on the car. And I consider myself lucky to have not broken the block because between my tuner and I we tried to start the car a few times.
I saw a lot of talk about truck starters. Smaller, same 1.7 kW rating if it's from a 6.0 or 6.2 (think Escalade, Yukon, etc). But they have the tall ear, so they avoid the breakage issue. Typical big box store prices were around $160 for a reman or around $220 for a new unit.
By chance, I looked at an LS3 C6 starter. It's the EXACT same thing as the smaller 6.0/6.2 truck starters with exception to the solenoid being clocked slightly differently, but not enough to make a difference. And it runs only $125 for the reman. That's a win in my book. I'm picking up one shortly.
But you DO need an extra connector. AC Delco PT170 is what you need. My advice. Go hit a junkyard. I went to our local one today, and VERY quickly found the connector on the starter of any number of smaller 4 and 6 cylinder motors from about 2005 and newer. They didn't even charge me for it.
I think you can also get a smaller starter. I forget the model, but some other GM deal like a truck etc.
I looked at it and it seems the truck starter isn't so much smaller that it makes a difference. The width and proximity to the turbo is what's getting me, length is not. The truck starter DOES have a full height ear though.....but I may have clearance issues if I were to put that in.
Top is the stock LS1 starter.
Middle is an L92 ('08 Escalade 6.2L) starter.
Bottom is an L83 ('14+ Silverado 5.3L) starter.
I played with the L83 starter a bit during my TTi build. It's really compact and still rated for 1.7kW according to what I've read. It bolts on, clears the bellhousing, and I was able to start my engine with it. There is a nice factory heat shield that bolts onto it too. Mine cranked the engine very slowly and started smoking after cranking for ~10 seconds to prime the oil pump after my engine rebuild. Not sure whether I got a bad starter or if the flywheel/bendix engagement is not good and putting extra strain on it or something? I didn't have time to keep playing around, so I ended up just sticking with the L92 starter because it works so well, but I didn't do any heat shielding, so I'll probably end up cooking it at some point like others have.
@TastyBacon That's interesting. That L92 starter still has the stud post for the ignition wire. I thought they all had that single plug connector.
That later model one looks like it would cause me a lot of problems trying to connect everything on the side right there. My turbo housing is pretty close at that location. I'm going to see how this LS3 starter does, picking it up in about an hour and probably heading out to the car to adapt that connector and toss the starter in.
@TastyBacon That's interesting. That L92 starter still has the stud post for the ignition wire. I thought they all had that single plug connector.
That later model one looks like it would cause me a lot of problems trying to connect everything on the side right there. My turbo housing is pretty close at that location. I'm going to see how this LS3 starter does, picking it up in about an hour and probably heading out to the car to adapt that connector and toss the starter in.
Yeah, it has the same stud mount as the older starters like the original LS1, which I find to be a huge pain in the ***, honestly. I hate fumbling around with that tiny ring terminal on that tiny stud with the tiny nut. I would much prefer the plug like the LS3 C6 and later starters use! I hope that one works out well for you.
The L83 starter is really interesting and I was bummed I wasn't able to get it to work. I may get back to it at some point, or possibly try a C7 LT1 starter; they look very similar. Sorry, it's not really clear from the photo, but that big stud sticking out sideways is just a 90-degree adapter on the big solenoid stud. Remove it, and you can bolt the main positive wire onto the solenoid the same as the other starters. The single-wire plug adapter is also bolted onto a tab on the solenoid with a threaded hole, it can be flipped around, bolted on at a different angle, or removed entirely and just bolt a ring terminal to the tab.
I just looked up the L83 starter. It's only a 1.4 kW compared to the 1.7 kW of the LS1, LS3/L92 starters. The earlier 5.3 starters were 1.4 kW also. Not sure if that's the source of your trouble but it's food for thought.
Well....dang. Got to the car this morning, got the harness modded for the later plug in signal wire, and......can't get the full height ear starter into the car. There's just too pinch between the block guide boss and the turbine housing. Can't get the full height ear around it. Rather than removing the turbo to do the starter, I have opted to go with an OEM style short ear LS1 starter and at least know if I need to I can get it in and out without a multitude of extra work.
I have everything here now. Got a surprise work "function" to go to this evening (suite at our local minor league baseball game) but tomorrow morning I'm heading back to the car with all the correct parts and will be making some noise by early afternoon.
Starter is in. Without the ear broken off even the stock one was a tight fit.
Have to do some extension wiring on the new meth pump. With the sock or whatever you call it on, the wiring gets cut short. Yes I know that's an old pump. It went on the car in 2007.
Starter is in. Without the ear broken off even the stock one was a tight fit.
Did you try the smaller truck starter? Or a c6 starter with the 2 long ears? I went to the smaller truck starter with the two long bolts and it added a ton of clearance.
Did you try the smaller truck starter? Or a c6 starter with the 2 long ears? I went to the smaller truck starter with the two long bolts and it added a ton of clearance.
Yes. The longer ear was too much to be able to fit in. I had to resort to the OEM style C5 starter. Glad I did, I think it may have saved my bacon.
Today went freaking SIDEWAYS about as bad as it could.
Got the new starter in. Got the new meth pump in and new seals on the tank. Everything looks good.
Go to start. I can hear the starter engage. But nothing. Weird. Check a couple of things. Prod the motor a little, seems like it's wanting to move. Try again. Nothing. Battery? Has juice. Throw the charger on it in start mode. KABLOOM. New starter shatters without the motor spinning. I'm thinking hydrolocked at this point. So I start talking with my tuner, and asked him if anything was off. He said no, he when to crank it, it started to spin, then boom grind went the starter.
I pull the plugs. The freaking engine is FLOODED. With METHANOL?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!? Boost juice, the red stuff, to be exact. 1 and 2 were full and dumped as soon as I popped the plug. The rest started spitting a little as I cranked it over by hand. I was worried it was a head gasket, I was not expecting to see meth come pouring out.
I am absolutely beside myself right now with worry. My ONLY hope is the weak short ear starter actually saved the motor by giving up and breaking before H-Beam rods could bend. It wasn't moving AT ALL today when we tried, so again, that could be a positive sign. I have a work function tomorrow but will probably go out with my compression tester and see how things look after I get another starter put in so I can put some RPM into it and blow the motor out.
I absolutely DO NOT understand how the motor got flooded with meth. The check valves are still in place and functioning, the controller is still at 7 like always, and the PAC progressive controller is still where it was as that's under the dash and I haven't touched it since we tuned the car in 2010. The only thing I can think of is the heavily leaking pump somehow shorted itself to on and was spinning while the key was on with the engine off. I'll do some playing with the meth once I get the new starter in and get it turning again.
Very uneasy about the car right now. If I come up noticably short on a cylinder or two.........it may be down for a long while. My funds to redo the motor aren't there due to my job change a year ago.......I'm finishing this setup up with money I had set aside specifically to do this.
Well, after being home for less than an hour, I couldn't take it. Got a starter and just got done compression testing 1-6 (saw what I needed to, 7-8 are impossibly hard to get at and I know the meth didn't make it back that far).
If this motor had nine lives she just spent them all.
I had a somewhat wide variance between three cylinders, IF it was dry vs dry. Three dry cylinders were around 160-165, the other three were 185-190. The higher ones? The ones that had fluid in them (#1, 2, and 4). And they were still pretty wet which I'm attributing to the higher numbers. Still, by the book, WELL within tolerance.
I'll probably go out tomorrow evening, throw the plugs back in, turn the Meth OFF (I've already verified on the new pump it's NOT spraying with power to the car on, I THINK the old pump, which was leaking at the head, failed to shut down after the last dyno pull), and see how it runs after airing out overnight.
Been there done that. Meth kits are unreliable at best. One of the reasons I only run torco with 93 or e85. Glad it only cost a couple starters.
I'm just hoping I can find what the failure point was, that bothering me more than anything at this point. I have a feeling it was the pump itself, as the check valve was working (I cleaned everything prior to putting it all back together, I couldn't blow through the check valve but got it to open with positive pressure); however, I am going to investigate further to ensure a repeat doesn't happen. But this escapade has furthered the little bug in my ear telling me to switch over to corn and ditch the methanol all together.
08-28-2019, 08:41 PM
