Mini starter install

[86VickyLX]

What bolts are you jumping?!

Do this! Battery Positive to starter solenoid on fender (like factory), other large cable from solenoid on fender to positive terminal on solenoid on starter. Run the small wire that was originally on solenoid on fender (S Terminal) to the small terminal on the solenoid on the starter.

[pantera77]

But the whine of the old school starters sound so delightful.

[gadget73]

Technically, yes you can jump the connections and use the starter relay to carry the whole load. The reason you should not do this and actually wire it up like Ford did is because the new starters pull more current, and the relay wasn't designed to handle the extra load. Give it enough time, and the relay on the fender will weld itself together. Just wire it up the correct way, its not that hard. Its as much effort to do it the wrong way as it is to wire it the correct way.

[gadget73]

Do this! Battery Positive to starter solenoid on fender (like factory), other large cable from solenoid on fender to positive terminal on solenoid on starter. Run the small wire that was originally on solenoid on fender (S Terminal) to the small terminal on the solenoid on the starter.

no, you leave the S terminal wire on the fender where it was. The fender relay operates and throws the solenoid on the small starter, which makes the starter go.


To do this correctly, you add one wire and move one wire. No wires are removed from the starter relay. The original starter cable moves to the constant + side of the relay. The new wire goes from the switched side of the relay to the S terminal on the new starter. Thats it. Nothing more complex than this, no jumpers, no splicing, no removing of any connections, etc.

[87gtVIC]

Exactly what Thain said. Do it that way so no other components fry. The new wire ran from the original starter wire position on the starter solenoid (aka relay on fender) can be 16 gauge or so because all that is doing is relaying the signal for the solenoid in the new mini starter to suck power from the constant HOT on the starter solenoid on the fender.

[85crownHPP]

Yep - best to wire it the factory way.

[pantera77]

So are you guys saying just to basically bypass the fender mounted relay (besides using it to tell the solenoid on the starter to wake up)? Because from the factory my 91 uses both the relay on the fender, and the solenoid on the starter. Always seemed like overkill to me.

[Glen]

OK, I'll make it look like a 91 and it should work. Sounds like a plan to me.

[85crownHPP]

So are you guys saying just to basically bypass the fender mounted relay (besides using it to tell the solenoid on the starter to wake up)? Because from the factory my 91 uses both the relay on the fender, and the solenoid on the starter. Always seemed like overkill to me.

You are sort of 'bypassing' it by indirectly wiring the fat cable right to the battery and changing the fender solenoid's function from high-amp 'crank' delivery to a 'trigger' function like you said. It is a bit overkill, and could be replaced with a normal relay (which I might do) but they would have had to re-engineer the car's power supply (which Dave and I have done) to do it, in lieu of a total model change in '91 - '92.

[1990LTD]

Could anyone give an explanation as to why these new starters are better? I know my car starts quicker and it seems much more effortless (car doesn't seem to vibrate as much while the drive is grabbing the flywheel) but don't really know why. Or why it's smaller and lighter.

[johnunit]

it's (partly) in the name:Gear reduction

Imagine your car engine is the starter motor's actual electric motor. The older starters are like trying to start in 3rd gear, the gear that grabs on the flywheel is spinning once for every rotation of the motor itself.

These smaller starters use gear reduction like in a transmission, so it's more like trying to start in 1st gear. The gear touching the flywheel might only spin once for every 5 spins of the motor, just like the driveshaft on your car only spins once for every several rotations of the engine when in 1st gear.

Because of the increased mechanical advantage (leverage, if you will), this means you can use a smaller/less powerful electric motor, just like you'd need a smaller engine to acheive the same acceleration from a stop in first than you would if you were starting in 3rd gear. I'd imagine that they still give you a powerful enough motor that it exerts more actual force on the flywheel than the older non-gear reduction starters.

The end result is that a smaller motor can be used while still providing quicker spinning of the flywheel.

I may be leaving out some details that are panther-specific, but that's the general advantage you get when going gear-reduction.

[1990LTD]

Sweet. I figured as much. What's the PM in PMGR?

[sly]

Permanent magnet probably.

[gadget73]

yeah, permanant magnet. Basically means its got regular magnets inside to create the magnetic field instead of coils of wire. The rotor still has coils of wire, but the fixed shell around the rotor does not.