I had a starter ring peel off of my JW "WHEEL" in the LeBaron a year and a half ago. No hard starting, no warning, just BOOM!!!!. The Ultra Bell did its job and kept the grenadeing shrapnel out of the car, away from me. However the frame rail was just about severed, 3/4 of the way cut through with the piece of starter ring still in the frame, both cooler lines severed as well as the wire from the crank trigger cut in two. I just had the frame fixed and ordered a Meziere billet flexplate. It goes on crank different than the JW "WHEEL". The JW had a .220" thick spacer, then the "WHEEL" and regular hex head bolts that I thinned a bit. The Meziere plate however, the flexplate goes on and then the adapter/spacer to pilot the, smaller than 727 pilot, on the converter for the 2-speed. Now the starter ring is 3/8" closer to the bellhousing mounting surface. Already had 5 thick shims to space out starter and now will need to ad 5 or more shims, plus the tq converter will pull out of the trans .220 more than it used to, the thickness of the JW spacer. It's never easy. I am thinking I will have to use the JW spacer and bore the center hole in Meziere flexplate to match the dia. of hole in the JW "WHEEL". I hate to modify a $450 part but how else is it going to work, with out buying a new $1100 tq converter and spacing the starter out a full 1/2"?

JW sure is proud of their "WHEEL" enough so to call it the "WHEEL". However I have been told by a few that they know this is a problem with the starter rings flying off. The Meziere is a one piece billet steel flexplate, in which the starter teeth are machined into the plate, not a welded on ring gear. After having one fly off I would like to never have this happen again!!!!!

I run the same flexplate but to a Reid cased glide. Have stands built for the converter. I built a plate for the starter to bolt towards the engine .770, or about 3/4 inch thick. JW sells an extension for the nose of the starter to the trans. The Meziere pilot worked perfect with the GM converter. That's all I know as I said, I don't have a JW anything.

I would call Meziere. Their customer service is the best.

OK,.Here's another configuration: JW Ultrabell for Mopar BB to powerglide. 0.25" rear motorplate. JW flexplate and TCI 8" converter. 0.500" thick starter spacer (with shimstock spacers if necessaary) to pull starter back from flexplate. Works great...no ring gear or alignment hassles.

I lost to JW flex plates myself before converting to Meziere. One was at the finish line and cut the tranny cooler lines and did damage to the car like yours too!

I have a Reid bell on a Reid glide case. If you mock up the Meziere parts just like they tell you to the starter will be fully engaged. The converter hub was perfect in their support ring and I could have used a .300" shim to bolt up the converter.

Flipping the Meziere Flexplate only gets you about .280" and you loose the extra chamfer they put on the ring gear. I could't space out my starter the rest of the difference because of interference with the block.

After 3 phone calls to Meziere we came to the following. 1) according to Meziere Callies and some others don't put the correct offset into a Mopar crankshaft flange. Thus causing the offset issue we have. 2) They will tell you to flip the Flexplate to gain whats available. 3) Then they want you to space out the starter to get the rest. Also note the gear mesh is very important and must be checked if you have aftermarket bell...don't want to damage a $500 Flexplate!

All that to say I had a machine shop enlarge the hole in mine and used the JW spacer with the Meziere Flexplate flipped to get mine all in the correct position. I wish Meziere would make the parts needed for us because this sucks!

Glad to see that someone else has fixed it the way that I planned to fix it. Sounds like it will work. I did not mention in original post, but plan was to put plate on flipped to offset starter ring to the rear. Thanks

Just sucks we have to go this way to make it work...Meziere told me they take 10 Mopar calls to 1 Chevy/Ford call combined about starter Flexplate issues!

Well it aint just Meziere. I have used TCI, ATI, Reactor and JW. I guess I got lucky as my JW wheel only lost a 6-8" chunk of the ring gear and it just broke the starter. I would be concerned and possibly make a call to Meziere and make sure or inquire if they will recertify the flexplate after its modified to work. I know most wont at this point but might be worth the call. I have used them all and they all have issues working. Some just need a small spacer/shim for the starter and others need a fair amount of spacer. A lot of things change all these dimensions and I would not expect this stuff to just bolt up and go with all the possibilities. For instance on my Stratus I used an ATI Case and Mopar bell with a 1/4" steel midplate. Other than a .375" spacer for the starter it bolts up with zero issues. The dragster uses an ATI adapter and Reid one piece case glide. It bolts right up and has a .250" spacer on the FTI Converter. Both cars use an ATI Flexplate

The JW Wheel is a bomb waiting to go off, total POS but that's just my opinion because it happened to me and everyone I know that ran them. If you are running one be aware.
What I did with the Meziere flex plate to make it work cut down the JW adaptor to fit inside the Meziere flex plate that way all the spacing stayed the same just shim the starter a little more. That was with the JW Bell and trans switched over to Reid this year went to .250 mid plate from .125 to get the spacing to where it was before.
If you want to open the hole up to fit the JW adapter I would call Meziere first to see if they would re-cert after you did that if need be send them back the flex plated and have them do the machining work for you

I've had good luck with my JW wheels, but they are newer ones. The ring gear stuff was mostly with the older ones. I just bought a JW billet wheel that the ring gear is machined into it, like the mez one. I think it's about half the cost of the mez too. I've never seen a bullet proof flywheel, but better is always better.

I know one thing that can effect any of them is trans misalignment. Bolt your case, or bell up there with an indicator. Surprising how far off most are. Offset dowels, or welding on the bell,l or case is a pain, but well worth the effort. Any misalignment causes flex, in on one side, out on the other. Add rpm to that, and most anything will fail in time.

Got a brand new JW flex plate to put behind my Hemi. Time to cross my fingers and pray to the racing gods it sounds like.

Knock on wood I never broke a powerglide aftermarket flex plate. Fingers crossed.