MSD 5096 Starter - installation review

[Rich Z]

A little while back I thought I had a dead starter on the C5Z, so I went ahead and ordered a new MSD 5096 starter as a replacement. Short story is that I found that the ACDELCO reman starter I had just put in there was NOT dead, just the nut on the +12 volt line from the battery had come loose.

But I decided to put in the MSD starter anyway, since Summit Racing had already sent it to me. And who wouldn't rather put in a shiny new spiffy RED high performance after market starter anyway? Right?

The MSD starter bolted up easy enough with the ACDELCO starter and header on the passenger side removed, since I already had all that out of the way troubleshooting the starter problem I had. Actually looked pretty sharp sitting there on the side of the engine...





I thought this was money well spent just for that alone. Did a couple of test cranks to make sure the starter was at least working, and everything seemed to be just ducky.

But when I tried to put the header back on, that's when things started to get sour. With the ACDELCO starter in place, the header came out real easily and would go back on without me breaking into a sweat. With this MSD starter, however, it was a completely different story. Expended my full vocabulary of curse words and it STILL would not go it. I had to remove the starter bolts completely in order to get the header to slip past the starter. Of course, before coming to that conclusion I tried as best I could to slip that header past the starter, all to no avail. And in the process, the starter did get bunged up a bit before deciding that the header just was not going to go past it.





So with the header in, I then bolted the starter back up, which wasn't quite so easy now with the header hanging in the way. But it was doable.

Thinking that everything was OK now, I proceeded to put the exhaust back together and tidy up all the wiring and stuff I had to move or remove doing this job. Wasn't happy about the complication of the header not clearing the starter without the starter being loosened up, but I was willing to live with it. So before starting the engine, I did a final check to make sure no wiring was laying against the headers, and I then discovered that no, no wiring was touching the header, but the MSD starter sure was.



Like pressing right against the header primary tube. So there would be direct exhaust heat transfer into that starter body from the header, which certainly would not bode well for reliability and longevity of that starter. Not to mention that I wasn't sure just how much pressure was being applied on that loose end of the starter by the header. The whole reason I was replacing the starter originally anyway was to get rid of my ORIGINAL starter (before I starter doing all this, and actually a remanufactured unit put in by South Georgia Corvette) that had that short starter mounting flange on the one side of it. The thought of putting pressure on the starter and probably putting some stress on those starter mounting bolts just did not set well with me at all. Suppose THAT caused some damage over time?

I contacted both LG Motorsports (who made the header set I have) and MSD about this clearance issue. I heard back from Anthony at LGM who said they had no experience with the MSD starters in relation to their headers on C5s and base C6s. He said that he had seen a C6Z06 with the MSD starter and their headers that did not have any clearance issues, though. But other than that, had no other experience to offer. Guess I was the first person in the world to run into this. But at least LGM did get back to me quickly.

Never heard a peep out of MSD about this, so I guess their customer service skills need a little bit of work.

So anyway, the MSD starter had to come out. I put the reman ACDELCO starter I had (which had the two longer bolt flanges) back in and wrapped it all up for some heat protection from the headers.



Then after slipping the header back into place (easy this time!) I checked on the clearance between the ACDELCO header and that same header primary tube that the MSD was pressed against.



MUCH better this time. There is at least a 3/4 inch space between the starter and the header tube now.

So that means that the MSD starter is substantially wider in diameter than the stock starter is. And I also noted that the MSD starter is SUBSTANTIALLY heavier than the stock starter as well.

Now I can't say that all header brands are going to have clearance issues with this MSD starter, but I'm thinking that there really isn't all that much room alongside the engines in these cars, and quite likely the header manufacturers just CAN'T take too much liberty with how they fit the headers in the space provided alongside the engine. Since the MSD starter takes up at least 3/4s of an inch more space in the area that the passenger side header needs to be, I would be concerned about this fitment issue no matter what brand of headers were being used. And let's face it, what are the chances that someone putting in an aftermarket, supposedly high performance starter would NOT also have headers too?

BTW, yes, the MSD starter does have the capability of rotating the starter a bit in relation to the mounting flange, but not enough to have made any difference with the header tube. Matter of fact, using any of the two other mounting adjustment holes, I think would have made matters worse instead of better. The starter solenoid itself would have likely pressed against the block in one direction, and then likely been closer or touched the header itself in the other direction. In any event, the main body of the starter wouldn't have changed much, if at all.

Fortunately Summit Racing was willing to take this MSD starter back, bungs and all, and give me a full refund on it, otherwise this would have been a $300 learning experience for me.