Mine is a 360 and manual trans with circa 1999 TTIs. I initially installed a Factory original gear-reduction starter. A year or two later, I had had enough of that trademark Mopar starter sound, and swapped in the mini..... click/ brooom/rumpidy rumpidy; gone is the Ruh ruh ruh ruh ruh ruh. So no, you don't NEED the mini, you can run the stocker if you have mind to. But IIRC it gets captured by the header, so if you need to take it off.... it's a PITA. The mini falls right off.
