[Greg Reid]

I went with the IMI unit because I liked the fact that the connections were on the block side and not the exhaust side. I'll never go back to a factory starter.
Now, having said that, I was ok with the factory starter until I started having problems and a hard time figuring it out. After going to the IMI there was still a problem...a single click about every 3rd try.
I finally rigged up a push button deal where I could get under the car to see what was happening. I thought it was an alignment problem because I could see that the starter pinion wasn't meshing with the teeth on the flex plate. As it turned the real problem was that the purple wire from my ignition switch was dropping at least half of the voltage to the solenoid. That low voltage didn't give the solenoid enough of a kick for the starter pinion to seek and set itself into the flex plate teeth. It seemed like two different problems but it was really just two different symptoms between the two designs. Factory solenoid wouldn't throw at all and the mini starter solenoid just wasn't getting voltage enough to force it mesh.
I replaced the wire from the ignition switch to the solenoid and no more problems since. After having changed that Delco starter in and out several times the mini starter was a dream to work with and so I'll be using those types of starters from now on.