SBC starter brace yes or no

Unless your Powermaster starter is the same size and shape as the big bulky direct drive stock starter, the brace won't fit anyway.

It won't fit any of the mini starters, factory or aftermarket.

Eric
It is the same bulky size as the OEM starter. I went ahead and installed the brace since I have it . However I have the engine on the frame with no headers on yet. So once I get the front clip and all the exhaust installed I am sure I will be regreting the decision of installing it if I ever have to remove the starter

bigmac73 said:

Eric
It is the same bulky size as the OEM starter. I went ahead and installed the brace since I have it . However I have the engine on the frame with no headers on yet. So once I get the front clip and all the exhaust installed I am sure I will be regreting the decision of installing it if I ever have to remove the starter

Click to expand...

I've never seen a Powermaster starter that looked similar to a gm hi torque starter. Very interesting.

bigmac73 said:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/pwm-3510

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Thank you. I was thinking it was gear reduction.

The old wire wound stator magnet starter needed the brace to react the heavy weight of those starters at the overhung end to prevent cracking the block casting mostly at the out board bolt hole.

The newer and lighter permanent magnet stator motors don’t typically use that brace but it remains a good idea if you have one that fits use it as a precaution. Though the Dart block is a lot beefier than Chevy production still if the starter mount cracks there aren’t any really good repairs.

The bracket doesn’t interfere with headers. Where the tube fit is tight a heat shield is a better solution than insulation as the latter is as good for holding heat in the starter from the block as it is keeping header heat out. If you wrap the header tubes the problem of heat rejection onto the starter or into the engine room just goes away down the pipe.

Bogie

Anyone thinking about whether they should use a front brace (assuming it fits their starter), should do the following:

Have someone start the engine, or use a remote starter and WATCH THE STARTER while it turns over the engine.

That should be your answer there........

I cannot think of how many braces I tossed out back in the day. Now I use one. I found a couple in an old hardware bucket recently, they cleaned up nicely.

I actually bought one myself over last summer and wanted to put on on my dart block and I use a gear reduction summit brand starter and the starter is way shorter then those bulky oem ones and to boot it does not even have a stud at the end to use of the bracket. I wish they had a long stud on them just to be able to use one and help things. In all my twenty plus years of using the very light gear reduction starters I have never had any problems with anything though.

Hopefully using the gear reduction starters eliminates that risk. Never knew that powermaster made a starter like that. I don't like those big bulk ones. Have always broken the noses on them so many times even from low cranking compression engines.