Update! I received a new starter and to my disappointment it does exactly what the old one does. So that means that the starters are working as designed. If 2 starters of the same model and brand doing the same thing it is probably by design. The starters are not OEM but in no way can be called cheap Chinese junk. The company refers to itself as a manufacturer located in the U.S. and is selling a lot of these, I am sure, and according to them it is the right model for my GXV630 Honda engine. If few or no GXV630 owners bought any of these starters, the manufacturer may not be aware of the problem like he says. I don't think that the problem is with my engine. The mounting surface on the block where the starter is mounted on is clean, undamaged and the other variable is the flywheel, which looks like it has never been removed or touched in any way and seems to line up where it should line up. I know many other engines probably can use this same starter and it may work flawless with them but it certainly does not work on my GXV630 engine because the spinning of the starter gear and it popping up are not simultaneous. There is a delay. Maybe the spinning starts half way up, or maybe 40 % up, I don't know but one thing is for sure. When the starter kicks in it sits under the flywheel tooth on tooth and is not spinning and therefore NO starting. Monday I did an experiment with the hopes to prove this point. I built a 0.10" spacer/shim which I put between starter and mounting surface, which would increase the travel of the starter gear by 1/10 of an inch before it gets to the flywheel in the hopes that it goes over the threshold where the spinning begins. And sure enough - it did! I guess now the spinning begins just 100reds of a second before the gear hits the flywheel and it slips right into gear every time. I must have started the engine now at least 20 times in the last 2 days and zero fail. Well, I don't know what's going on here and I am not going to lose anymore sleep over it. It works like it is supposed to and sometimes you just don't have an answer.
