I have a 68 vette that was a 427 car but I bought as a roller. Ive had a 71 LS5 under my bench for a decade, so its currently sitting in the car. I bought what I read was the correct parts for a bbc in an early c3 - 14" 163 tooth flywheel, bellhousing is an original GM 3899621, the bottom cover tin is a gm 03843943 (but ive even tried without this in place...so its not the issue). I bought a starter for a 71 454 corvette, which is the same pn a 71 454 chevelle calls for as well....but the nose of the starter will not go into the hole as the mounting hits the block. Ive read on one thread that the aluminum nose starters do not fit, it must be a cast iron. Does anyone have a part number that will actually work? Or should I just buy a clockable mini starter? This is becoming frustrating...

 

Do you have the starter part number? Was it a reman starter or brand new? Additionally, I am assuming you have a 168 tooth flywheel as the chevy did not have a 163. The smaller flywheel is a 153 tooth.

I will also say some of the mini starters do not work well with bellhousing plate. The ones with the flat surface across them may contact some of the raised portions of the plate.

 

Here's the original starter I removed from my '71 454. I kept it when I installed a rebuilt starter from NAPA.

 

Buy a mini starter, it will perform much better than rebuilt junk you get these days from the parts store.

 

The bell for a 14 inch, 168 tooth flywheel fits the starter with a cast iron nose and bolts in a diagonal pattern like in the pic. The bell for the 12 7/8 153 tooth flywheel needs the aluminum nose, straight across bolt pattern starter. If you're using the starter stud to engine block bracket, you will need the bracket from a 65 396 or 67 L88 for you LS5. Otherwise the regular big block starter brace will work.

If you get the wrong starter, the noses are fully interchangeable.

 

Thank you everyone...all very helpful info. No cast iron nose starters in my immediate area, so i looked on marketplace and found a new in box mini-starter for far less from someone's recent build. it fits, so I'm getting closer to getting this thing back to life.

 

I have a 1968 with it's 427 and when I rebuilt the engine I added a lot of compression. The factory starter was able to start the engine when it was cold much better than after a drive. The amount of current that is used to turn over a high compression 427 with a regular factory starter is very high. I had my factory starter upgraded with a little extra power and it was still marginal at best. I was ready to add a second battery to have more cranking power as the starter would crank slowly when hot. I tried a Heat Reflective blanket and that didn't change much. I suspect heat soaking was having an affect as that factory starter was closer to my headers pipes. Using the factory Exhaust manifolds brought the heat even closer to the factory starter

One day I was reading some information about the power of the little gear driven starters and it seemed like a worthwhile experiment. The one I purchased claims to be capable to turn over a 15-1 compression engine with ease and was about $150. So I bought one and installed it and was very surprised to see how little current the device used while cranking my engine. This little gear drive starter can spin the engine much faster than the factory starter ever could. This starter uses a fraction of the electrical power and spins the engine faster which helps starting immensely. My engine has long tube headers so it fit in without any issues and I didn't have to rotate the motor to make it fit my 427 in it's otherwise stock form.

I would switch over to a gear drive starter on any engine from now on, I like how the voltage doesn't drop below the 11 volt range during cranking my 427. The older factory Starter would cause the same battery to drop into the 9 volt range to start the engine. The gear drive starter I am using has worked great for over 25 years and still sounds like a Chrysler Starter when cranking the old 427 to life.

 

I've got a 1970 454 LS5 with extra compression and it is very tough to restart when it's hot. Sounds like the same problem you had. Could you provide the Brand Name of the starter you bought along with the part number? Does this one have a nose cone like the original? I tried buying one from Amazon but it didn't fit at all. Thanks.

Mine looks like the picture above posted by Green 71 - with the diagonal mounting holes.