[gto4evr]

Hello,

hoping someone can school me about the differences in the number of teeth on a ring gear. I'm currently trying to buy a replacement flywheel and clutch setup for my 69 GTO with stock 400.

I read through a bunch of different forum posts saying that LUK setups were decent. I came across an auction on ebay selling the clutch and flywheel as a set and though the title says it's for chevy, the fitment says it fits pontiac. The flywheel shows it has 168 teeth. I count 166 on mine and from some internet chasing, see that 166 is correct for Pontiac. what I'm not understanding is if this actually matters because I don't get why a replacement bendix for the starter is the same part number for basically everything GM from the 60's to the 80's -- I'd think that a change in the number of teeth on a ring gear should change the matching teeth in a starter but apparently not? Can I use this "chevy" 168 toothed ring on the flywheel in my pontiac?

I went to Summit racing and see the LUK has two different flywheels, LFW131 with 153 teeth, LFW101 with 168 teeth. Then there's a summit racing flywheel SUM-700090 at double the price but with 166 teeth. also this one says nodular iron instead of steel.

This is a bone stock car that barely gets 100 miles a year, so I'm not after trying to build something crazy with those $1500 flywheels that come up at summit either, so right now, I'm leaning towards the SUM flywheel because I just can't wrap my head around the difference in number of ring gear teeth and the fact the starter bendix doesn't change between them. (and also not interested in sweating my old ring gear off and swapping it since my gear is damaged and missing a tooth so that's not part of this equation) Any info is greatly appreciated here!

Thanks,
Dennis