What compression ratio is it good to get a aftermarket starter?
That being said, which one do you guys run? And do they come with the solenoid you need to use? Im a little confused on that part. I read in the summit magazine that the Ford Racing starters must use a firewall mounted solenoid
94+ use a piggyback solenoid. See Chris (Cman's) recent thread about his starter. He and/or I put a link and/or pic up.
Foxes come with remote (fender) mounted solenoids. So when guys get a HI-po starter, they have to swap a couple wires around and basically get the fender mount solenoid out of the control side of the wiring path (using the piggyback solenoid instead). You wont have to do any of that. A starter with a piggy back soleenoid should be plug and play for you.
Ok, got their page to load and I see what you saw. There is a solenoid piggybacked on the two starters I saw. For kicks, you could call them and point this out and see what they say.
The thing is that you normally dont run two starter solenoids in series because it can cause a delay when you release the key from the crank position (you are having to collapse two solenoid coils and there is a slight delay in the bendix retracting).
Nate, the only reason I upgraded my starter was because the old one had taken a licking this summer while working on my car. It was cranking real slow, then it finally went out all together a few weeks ago.
I got my starter off of eBay, it's a hi-torque piece, with the solenoid mounted piggy-back, all for $48 plus shipping ($63 after shipping). It's a NICE piece, and it installed SUPER easy!
What compression are you running? Really, unless your stock piece is damaged, I'd leave it in for now, unless you want some extra cranking power. Oh, if you have a stereo system, it'd probably be worth it to upgrade the starter. My stereo system keeps my battery drained a little bit, and the new starter takes less amps to crank, so startups are a breeze.
Anyway, the only modification you might need to make is on the solenoid wire. Factory, it's a plug that plugs into the factory solenoid, on my aftermarket, it's a post terminal on the solenoid, so I had to cut the plug off and crimp a ring terminal on. No biggie, all of 5 minutes and it was done (and 4 minutes was finding a stupid ring terminal! lol).
Thanks for the help fellas, i just didnt want to get this thing together and in a few months have to go back and replace the starter. The motor will probably be around 10.5:1.
My stock starter worked fine until I actually drove the car, so Im thinking the heat must have killed it. My other problem is that I was using too small a wire from the battery in my trunk, because I eventually(worked great for a while) had the same problem with the new starter. 2/0 welding cable directly from the battery to the starter fixed all my starting problems.
The stock starter may work just fine for you, but if you can spare the cash I highly recommend replacing it while you have easy access to it. Believe me, it's a bitch to change with LT headers!