Porsche Starter - DIY - Re-Clocking for clearance

[Randy V]

I'm building my RCR40 with a Small Block Ford 331 Stroker and Porsche G50/03 Transaxle. At the point in time when I started building this car, there were no other RCR owners on the forum that were building with Porsche G50 transaxles.
I moved my engine/transaxle forward by a little over 2" in order to more closely align the rear axles to the axle stubs on the transaxle as well as to get the back end of the transaxle "inside" the rear body work.

When I moved the engine/transaxle forward, I found that I could not fit the stock HD Porsche starter as it would hit the chassis. The starter needed to be re-clocked in order to work.
There were no commercially available starters that could be re-clocked that I could find.
I found a gear reduction starter on eBay and another RCR Builder (Jeff Hamilton) had bought the same starter to go through a similar exercise on his RCR40.

This picture shows the stock starter and the interference with the chassis;

The problem with re-clocking the stock starter is that it has a shrouded nose that has an additional bearing - so I sourced this Gear Reduction starter that had a fully exposed drive gear:

Here you see the factory Clocking

This picture shows the desired Clocking

Houston - we have a problem… The bolt (actually one of the 4 10mm transmission mounting studs) is a mile away

Here you see where the other bolt needs to be;

Metal in the bellhousing is quite thin here but we'll make it work by threading a button head bolt through from the inside;

So I start designing a dual-purpose torque strap that will also clamp the starter tight to the bellhousing;

And here - We have Crankage…. It works quite well! No movement of the starter and good engagement of the gears.

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PLEASE NOTE::
Not long ago - RCR has sourced re-clockable starters that are available.

I hope this information can be of some use to someone who needs to re-clock their starter..

 

[Phil]

Randy:
Quite an interesting solution to the problem. I had a similar situation with a GT3 box running inverted and looking at your 5th and 6th photos I had the same alignment.
I went thru the process of dis-assembling the starter, welding some plate to the front, and re machining the front of the starter to fit flush. I then drilled the bolt hole you have marked and re-installed the assembled unit with the new holes located in the mounting face.
Same result...it works fine. Now I fear its a one-of-a-kind unit whereas yours could be replaced with another piece.
Nice job, it proves there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.
Cheers
Phil

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Facinating and creative, and just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat. Here is how I a clockable starter (Patrick Motorsports sells it), drilled new clocking holes, and then did some creative machining in the garage (crude but effective) to put the motor just under the CV joint:

http://www.gt40s.com/forum/can-am-r...en-replica-build-base-manta-5.html#post279329

 

[Ron Earp]

Good work Randy, I like your solution. There are re-clockable starters available off the shelf though. I had this problem a couple of years ago:

http://www.gt40s.com/forum/gt40-tec...ng/22079-porsche-930-starter-predicament.html

And this was the solution with an extended nose, which hi torque offers. I'm pretty sure they do the same for the G50 if it is a different starter.

: : Hi Torque IMI Performance Products, Inc : :

 

[Randy V]

Thanks guys... As you may have already figured out - I have a tendency to take the hard route on somethings..

I did end up with what I think is a good and viable solution and if need be I could bolt up a stock Porsche starter and be good to go.. The only other solutions I had seen were starters that were $500 or more and were out of my budget...