New fly wheel should have a 280mm 110tooth ring gear (same as previous setup) I have yet to count the teeth as I am not looking forwards to doing it in the car. I reused my 9tooth stater but it hardly cranks over eventually stops cranking after a few goes and the starter gear doesn't disengage from the flywheel. I grabbed the starter out of my spare parts car (LB sedan with a 1.6, 4spd) it too has the same failure, we backed of the two bolts to let it have some free play and it did crank quicker. Also tired pulling the spark plugs as I thought the motor being high comp was too hard for the starter to turn but it had no effect.
I just installed a mates brand new 8 tooth starter out of his 2.6 sigma and it cranked a lot better but still meshes poorly with the flywheel and make a racket when it starts, also had to run this starter with loose bolts to allow the gear to disengage.
Any thoughts or suggestions? I am starting to think that something it up with the ring gear being too large, next possible fix is to open up one of the holes in bellhousing so I can pull the starter away from the ring gear but would prefer an alternative such as a slightly different starter is there is such thing. I am also puzzled how I can switch between an 8 and 9 tooth starter and get similar results.
Here is a photo of the flywheel and clutch, it looks the sexy but driving me nuts.
![Image](https://scontent-a-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10477015_10202780494486665_991512942757420005_n.jpg)
![Image](https://scontent-a-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t1.0-9/10414924_10202704472906173_759588592909184001_n.jpg)