After being long delayed I'm back at work on my Suburu conversion. It's a 3.3 out of a SVX. I've put on a Kennedy adapter and clutch to use my 901 tranny. I've hooked up most of the wiring but it is slow to turn over. I have a good battery, new high-torque starter, and have verified good voltage at the starter. The engine is high compression (10:1), but thought the new starter should turn it over easier that this. It turns over, just slow and seems difficult.
I've got it on a bench next to the car with the tranny/clutch installed. Is there something obvious I'm missing? I've done plenty of stupid stuff before. I'll post this over on the Subaru forum as well, but there's so much good car knowledge on this board I just wanted to ask here as well. Thanks

how are you routing the ground? the starter get's it's ground through the tranny case. did you hooked it up with the tranny ground strap? if so, make sure all contacts are clean and the strap is in good condition ...

Andy

it sounds exactly like a gounding issue to me. make sure that your ground is secure and that you actually have a good circut.

Zach

I do have it grounded. Since it's right next to my car (where the battery is) I have an old jumper cable connection going from my new tranny ground strap to the bolt under the rear trunk floor. Should I add another ground somewhere else?

Try a solidly bolted cable from the battery ground post to a suitable bolt on the transmission. Booster cable clamps are not a good connection. I bet if you were to put a digital voltmeter between the starter case and the negative battery post (while cranking) you would see a big voltage difference on this ground circuit. That means huge losses in the ground circuit.

Yes, directly to the negative terminal. Not to a ground on the car.

Thanks for the tips. I will try another and better ground this afternoon.