For Randii and whoever else was following my clutch engagement problem I ran some numbers and some possible solutions and made up a game plan. I am going to have the aluminum spacer posted earlier made up on a lathe designed to hold a high speed bearing for a pilot. The spacer will be .6" thick to give me 1" of Input shaft engagement. (I have .41" right now). I will source some longer hardware for the spacer and try to use all the available threads in the crank. For the starter engagement issues I'm going to get another flywheel ring gear and stitch weld it along the inner edge to the back of the flywheel aligned with the existing ring gear. It will just look like a really thick ring gear when done. I should only need about $100 for the spacer, $20 for hardware and $30 for ring gear and be done.

Before I came up with this I researched all the other options and found this is the only one that should work.

I worked out using a 2.8L camaro flywheel as they are thicker but even though both motors are externally balanced the balancing would be different. The strength isues with fill welding and redrilling a flywheel for a different pattern concerned me. Plus I would be looking at more machine shop time to build a pilot bushing for me from bronze. I'd also need to swap pressure plates.

I looked at a simple spacer made from cutting down the flexplate (.175") combined with milling the front mating surface of the trans (.13" max) and this would only give me .71" engagement. I couldn't make a flat spacer any thicker without a locating "shoulder" built in. The .71" sounds ok but I subtracted an estimated loss due to the marcel spring compressing, .03" and a loss due to the friction disc wearing down .07" Which would bring me to .615" engagement and run risk of failure.

A custom flywheel would need to be balanced like the old flywheel and my internet research has shown some smal shops have problems with this even after the 600-700 dollar price tag. My drivetrain cost less than that (minus adapters).