this spring i built two new engines for my boat. spent ten years saving to build a couple of quality reliable engines.thought i bought the best of everything including two new MSD starters. took the boat out for a shakedown run then up north for a two week vacation on the lake. within three days the starboard starter started to fail and and ate the ring gear to the point of the teeth being gone. the port starter wasnt far behind either.

vacation ruined, called MSD they tried ever thing in the book to deny anything was wrong with the starters, including the claim that my billet flywheels were not round.

complete crap customer service , no returned phone calls. had to repeat the same story because the last person was didnt remember my case. sent the flywheels and starters to them for testing, waiting 3 months for them to handle my case after calling and being told they were going to handle it next week over and over.

finally two days ago they agreed to pay two thousand to cover the starters and the labor of pulling two engines. then today they called to tell me that they changed their mind and now would not do anything but replace the starters or refund the purchase price of them.

btw, the tilton super starters i replaced them with have worked flawlessly the rest of the year.

just an fyi to anyone considering using them. worst customer experience i have ever had.

WOW !

Making Starting Difficult

Many Sparks Die

Not sure exactly what went wrong with yours, but make sure you're checking the engagement with the ring gear before final assembly. I've had to change starters before to get sufficient ring gear engagement.

trust me, im fussy as hell and spent allot of hours rigging these motors. the clearance was checked very carefully. the funny thing is the first person admitted to them having problems with the starters and then later denied saying that after he found out i wanted more than just two new starters.

mine would not fully engage the ring gears. sounded like you tried to start an already running engine.

I would go with sierra or ac delco for replacements, plenty of bad reviews out there for the msd ones.

they had good reviews on summit racing, though. so glad i went with daytona sensors ignitions and not MSD

I had the same issue with MSD products. Had motors in and out of the boat 4 times. Everything is brand new ... Went to a Mezziere starter the best and most expensive. No issue. MSD billet dist with Daytona boxes. Had reluctor wheel come off the shaft on both dist. They're stuff is all junk now. In the past I never had any issues with their boxes,etc...

i was told they, holley ,hooker, hays, mr. gasket, and a few others were bought by some investment bank and they are moving production overseas. my $500 holley billet fuel pumps were made in korea.