I have been scratching my head over my starter which is an SD455 1108436 starter but has a 1B11 date on it (Feb 1971). It appears it has never been touched and no one in the ownership chain ever replaced it. I was told by the judges that it is too early to be a factory installed starter, which is why they gave me zero points for the starter. At the time of the show I had no idea the starter was that far beofre the car otherwise I would have researched the issue beforehand.
(It is interesting to note though, that all the 73 SD455 engines were cast in 1972 which was how the engineers got around the bosses trying to cancel the entire SD455 program once they found out about it - but they found out too late that all the engines had already been built and instead of scrapping the program, they decided to save money and just let the cars be built)
Well, I just had my buddy down the street (just 5 miles away) check his starter. He owns a survivor, original paint, Brewster Green SD455 Trans Am that he has owned for several decades and bought from the original owner. His car was built/shipped 20 days before mine 6/29/73 versus 7/19/73
and the result?
SAME PART NUMBER, SAME EXACT DATE CODE!
My starter:
His starter:
I am now reaching out to other SD455 owners about their starter dates. Stay tuned!