starter

[grey88gt]

Iam guessing the teeth are in good shape on the flywheel and starter. I take you havent installed the cam and pushrods and rockers yet? As stupid as this sounds, is the starter just sounding diffrent because there is not enough load on it ? Also most starter's will not kick out or disengauge the flywheel until the engine trys to start. (the force of the the flywheel makes the starter drive kick out when the engine starts) Have you noticed metal shavings or the gear or flywheel starting to look bad? If not you may not have a problem. Ive cranked over lots of diffrent engines without spark plugs in them and sometimes the starter drive will get hung engauged. Anyways just my 2 cents. Hope this helps, good luck. ( You might put the starter on another engine that runs and see if it grinds and stays engauged then).