which starter would be best on sbc ? mini or standard , on standard do you run wire on s side of solonoid to postive side of coil when running points ? on mini starter what would be correct hook up ?
instead of asking random questions on here, I recommend that you find a simple wiring diagram for GM primary ignition setup. Any "how to wire a...." book will have that.
IMO,,, If you have the space, screw mini starters.... They cost at least 3 times as much as an old style starter and I don't think they work any better at all, and maybe not as well over the long term.
Unless your running a high compression build stay with the standard. My nickels worth isnt worth 3 cents...
The S terminal on solenoid goes to the key switch term marked S....or if an automatic trans, it goes though the neutral safety switch first. The older solenoids have a term marked I for ignition, that goes to the + side of a points style coil. Then the ignition switch terminal marked I, goes to the same + coil terminal but first going through a resistor or resistor wire. the whole point of all that is that the points will run on lower resisted voltage, but when you crank, it gets a full battery voltage up to the coil to start better.
now that you've chastised me (PM) for only answering PART of your question, I would suggest that most mini-starters are gear drive and offer increased starting torque. Unless you have an engine with some high compression or other reason to need such a feature, I'd stick with a good stock GM starter and make sure it's wired properly and has a GOOD GROUND dj
And we have who knows how many threads on here concerning issues with mini starters onb sbc engines. I'm with the others. Unless there is an absolute specific reason that you need to run a mini starter I would run a quality heavy duty original starter. For most guys the mini starters seem to be a gotta have it fad thing rather than something that they actually need. The cool guys have one so they need one. There might be three reasons for needing one. Exhaust clearance, Frame clearance or the best stock type starter doesn't have enough torque to spin your engine right.
Before I knew any better, we put a $200 Powermaster mini starter on my son's truck because it looked cool, we managed to immediately destroy the sprag, (probably our fault) knowing that Powermaster likely didn't design the starter from scratch I went to the parts store hoping to find out what stock starter they used to make it. After a few minutes we were able to figure out that it was a modified TOYOTA starter. I was able to buy a $30 Toyota starter to "rebuild" the sprag which worked. The starter stayed on the truck for about another year when it failed and was replaced with an early $30 replacement starter which is still on the engine 5 years later. I have also used "stock replacement" GM mini starters from time to time, but in my experience, the big old heavy *** early starters are just better, and no doubt cheaper..... I hate paying "premium price" for a mediocre product....
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