Yup, thanks, I wasn't thinking about that pesky Ohm's law. I was thinking Volts X Amps = Watts and trying to keep the Watts constant. Volts decrease, amps decrease, watts decrease, starter slows, got it. As the two of you pointed out it was a misconception and the wrong law.

I have never really studied AC motors much. I understand matching the speed of the motor to the cycles of the AC current for torque. The stuff about how start capacitors shift the phases for torque at different speeds is a little past what my intuition can justify, need to read. As a kid I took apart some capacitors and it just didn't make sense.

The warning on the alternator still holds.