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Next up, the starter problem.
We use this hard-to-find Hitachi gear reduction starter for reasons thoroughly explained here. We removed the nose of the starter, machined the starter nose features into the bellhousing, and integrated the starter directly into the adaptor. The only problem with this clever strategy is this one bolt, which has to be installed from the bellhousing side.
Not only is the bolt head in the bellhousing, it's actually in line with the flange of the bellhousing. Completely impossible to get to with the engine in the car.
To make it accessible, we've now drilled a hole all the way through the bellhousing. The bolt itself is still trapped, but you can stick an allen wrench in this hole to loosen the bolt and walk the starter off now.
And we almost had to use this hole too… After getting the defective starter rebuilt, I almost made the mistake of just slapping everything together and installing it in the car. Luckily, I did a starter test first. The clutch no longer slipped, but the the solenoid wasn't holding the starter gear in place. After a few revolutions, the gear would sometimes pull out. Other times, the starter would spin up before the gear moved into place, resulting in a nasty crash as the spinning gear slammed into the stationary flywheel.
The problem was the way this particular solenoid was configured. This was set up for an external solenoid (just a huge relay) to power the starter. Because of the connection shown above, when power goes to the positive terminal, both the solenoid and starter get power simultaneously. I was powering the starter with the Hayabusa solenoid, so it should have worked in theory, but…
Cutting the connection and connecting the battery directly to the big positive post, and the signal wire to the soldered post on top forces the gear to engage before the starter can spin. This finally worked right:
