im attempting to diagnose my flywheel problems. im looking for a pic of an oem starter, showing the starter gear.

similar to this:


excuse the carnage.

 

From the looks of it I'd say your gear on the flywheel was too small and only making contact with the starter gear by about a milimeter or two. I had this problem with an aftermarket flywheel that had the wrong ring gear. The starter gear rolls over the ring gear causing a horrible grinding noise and shredding pieces off the ring gear. Those pieces can collect on your crank shaft position sensor and make it stop working. Of course loosing the teeth on the ring gear can be a problem too.

One solution would be to widen the bolt holes in the starter to move it sideways so the teeth line up tighter. Measure from the polished marks on the starter gear teeth to the bottom of the teeth. Move the starter about a milimeter less than that measurement. You'll also have to take some material off the starter housing because of the way it fits against the tranny. The housing is thick on that side so it won't be a problem.

What flywheel and starter are you using?

 

i got an xtd 350z flywheel, and a duralast starter.

so ur saying move the starter towards the back of the car? but what could cause the notching of the starter?

 

The notching on the starter gear is from the gear slipping off the flywheel because it's not making contact with enough area. Moving the starter more towards the back of the car will solve the problem. That way the gears will fit together tighter and not slip.

If you want to pull the tranny again you could measure the flywheel and count the teeth. The flywheel I got aftermarket had one less tooth than stock and was about 6mm smaller. I contacted Fidanza and they fixed it for me with the correct ring gear. Of course thet involved pulling the flywheel and reinstaling the stock unit. Then doing it again when my Fidanza finally made it back to me. That was a lot of work.

 

ok, but how could it gouge that far back? i looked again today, and i almost think that the pp itself is hitting.

 

It looks like it might be. I was looking more at the teeth than the housing.

You might have the wrong starter. The flywheel could also be a bad fit. All the VQ35 motors use the same clutch setup but I know the 350Z flywheel is different. I'm just not sure how. I have a stock Maxima flywheel here if you need any measurements.

Is it just making noise on start up or is it doing something else too?

 

well, i have the same setup as sr20den, but he has an oem starter whereas i have an autozone one, i have a spec stage 2 clutch and he has oem, and he has had no reliability problems. i believe that the starter housing is hitting either the pp bolts or the pp itsself, because there are marks on the pp that wouldnt have been from just knicking it up when installing the tranny.



the noise is just upon start up. if its not too much trouble, could you take out ur starter and take a pic of the teeth to compare?

 

I'm getting ready for work now but later tonight I can.

 

Good luck .

 

lol thanx. the flywheel is coming in tomorrow. then she goes under the wrench.

 

crazy question, but, are 5spd and 6spd pp bolts the same?

 

That one I don't know. Give Dave B. a call. He'll be able to help.

I got home late last night and didn't get to pull the starter. I'll try and get to it tonight.

 

Derrick, been lookin to get in touch with you. Talking with Dave B about 350z clutch in our cars. You say the flywheel is different, does that mean the the PP and FD are different also? If you can, email me daboxse@gmail.com