Jim:
A look at the wear marks on both the starter gear and flywheel ring gear seemed to show acceptable mesh between the two. From what I was told, there was a lot of cranking when it was found that the engine wouldn't fire after the engine bay cleaning. The Ford Racing mini-starter may have been having some solenoid issues with all the heat being generated or quite possibly the heat treat on the flywheel ring gear could have been less than optimum. I don't know for sure. But I'm going with the assumption that all the parts are spec'd properly when used with the McLeod bellhousing. It started fine for me over the 8kmi of my ownership so far...then this.
In any case, the starter and ring gear have both been replaced, so we'll see what happens now. I don't expect any issues under normal starting circumstances...
- Allen.