Technical WTF happened with this starter ring gear?

Many years at race tracks, construction sites, auto plants, junkyards...

 

I wonder about the balance of it.

 

That depends on what crankshaft is in the engine, which we don't know. Oh...you mean how well it's balanced after all that welding? Torque converter companies generally have the stuff needed to balance a converter, so if it was built by a converter company, it is probably balanced.

 

There's no untoward vibration, which is why I was a bit surprised when I noticed it. I think it's the stock forged, internally balanced crank judging by the balancer and the general "let's bolt stuff on" approach to performance the PO took. It's got some "purple" cam in, headers, a TM6 intake, MSD 6AL and a reverse manual valve body (I'm guessing that meant they didn't have to deal with a kickdown linkage).

 

If it works, don’t fix it until it doesn’t work.
And I wouldn’t worry too much about the dust cover unless you’re traveling a lot of gravel roads. I’ve ran transmissions for years without a dust cover and never had a problem.

 

...until that rock that's just the right size and shape jumps up in there....

 

I have a gravel drive. Hence my desire to get it done!

 

When that was ***embled , maybe nothing available to do the swap . It obviously has worked for years , I’d bet it’s better than off shore , junk available today .

 

that torque converter is a quality job done by someone who knew what they were doing. if there's no mechanical problems with it, leave it alone.
you could probably fabricate a cover pretty easily with sheet metal. just put a clearance groove in the cover for the bolt heads. it is a small enough item that a metal fabrication shop could make you one. just show them what you need and why and they can make one pretty quick too, probably.

 

Engineered ..