I thought it was a description of your mechanical skillz...:lol:

Thanks guys. Jason, you should bring that big Ford out for a run around a course. That Q Link would probably stick pretty damn well! Yes 2nd gear would be nice at least once in awhile! :lol:

That works too... another reason I like the intentionally ambiguous moniker. :unibrow:

lol one of my employees is a soundgarden nut and has that logo tattooed on his leg...

glad to see you getting to actually enjoy your car dave!
have fun a rtth as i cant make it since my manager quit on me 2 weeks ago...

I've seen this play out before with this Renner character. One of his (many) threads starts to lag so he and/or one of his lackeys cronies come up with a new spray...:(

Flash, you post a few 1st gear vids...:geezer:

and then fittingly on Super (hype) Bowl week, you come up with some obtuse name from some obscure band...and I use that term 'band' lightly.

Someone wake me up when he hits 2nd gear. :rolleyes:

Congrats Dave on getting the car back together and running it in the Auto-x :thumbsup:

Awesome. I like your employee. Give him the :thumbsup: from me.
Bummer you can't make it man. :mad:

LOL - where is Renner when I need him???? :willy:

Can I get a tranny spray or something that allows me to shift into 2nd?

And hey... an attack on Soundgarden is an attack on humanity! Them's fightin words! :captain:

You're a piece of work Skip... in a good way that is. :D

Thanks Ryan!

X2!



:lol:

Good stuff Dave. :thumbsup: Awesome name for the Camaro and a great explanation behind it. Can't go wrong with some Soundgarden.

Thanks Corey. I like your attitude! :D

Some good and some bad happened today. Hopefully the bad created some good and prevented bad from happening later.

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...hoto_006-2.jpg

Apparently before the distributor was reinstalled recently we did not notice the lack of a bronze gear for use with the big solid roller cam. It now has the bronze gear in it as of today. Not sure exactly why the steel gear snapped today while just heading out for a cruise. Esp after working it hard last weekend for 75 miles or so including the AutoX. :question:

So we put my girlfriend to work on the side of the road. :D

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...hoto_001-7.jpg

We still got to enjoy the 75* day for a little bit before sundown still and put a few miles on her. Will change the oil again (maybe twice) since the broken gear pieces are down there somewhere. :_paranoid

Still not sold on why the steel gear broke now... it had been in there for who knows how long before I acquired the car... then I put 500 pretty hard miles on it before we pulled the motor and freshened up... put it back together and it breaks in under 100 miles?

Thoughts? :question:

Hey Dave - two things come to mind. First, it prob was going bad for a while so it's just bad timing (or good if you consider this could've happened at rttc). Second, don't forget you just found and fixed a throttle linkage prob which can allow for a little quicker spool up of the engine, i.e. more torque, quicker = harder gear mash. If it's any consolation, it happens alot. Ask me how I know...

Sucks. Good thing you got that figured out now---that would be a tough one to fix on the side of the 5 fwy. This is the stuff you go through when you are putting it on the road and driving it---you continue to find the weak links and will eventually conquer them all. Put a magnetic drain plug in the pan, and when you change the oil cut the filter and see what you've captured. 19 days and counting to RTTC trip.

These repairs------are makin me thirsty.

Doug

Dave, sounds like the same I luck I am having. Keep your head up, and keep fighting

That's what I'm hoping Ron. I just try to subscribe to the "coincidences are usually not coincidental" mantra and find the cause-effect for something like this. Not always possible, I know.

One idea from one of Rich's friends (experienced car/engine guy) was that there could be a bad combo of cam end play and vertical placement of the distributor to cause uneven gear wear that he saw on the old steer gear. (The cam does have a cam buttom)

Exactly. Could have been a weekend killer later this month. And yep we've got the magnetic drain plug in and hoping it pulls all that shiat out.

Who knows what else we'll find in the next 19 days! :willy:

Pour me a beer?




Yeah Mike I hope your stuff turns around too buddy. You bout ready and all dialed in to make the trip?

Must not like the new name..... ha ha Your old pal, old buddy Todd has a few thoughts. :unibrow:

1. Your gear mesh doesn't look right. The distributor looks like it needs to be deeper. They make slip collar distributors just for this problem.

2. When the engine is cold, you need to take it easy. Your oil pressure is high and that is when a majority of the stress takes it's toll on the gear. How much oil pressure do you have when you first start driving and row through the gears?

3. A bronze gear is the wrong direction unless you want to swap it every year. A bronze gear is only to be used on a billet gear. Do you have the cam card so you can reference the manufacturer and cam gear type? I'd go with a melonized gear.

4. If you decide to ignore my advice on the gear. I'd block your oil filter bypasss. In fact, I'd block it either way. Remember what took out the bearings on my first engine? A bronze distributor gear that wore and sheered. When the engine is cold, GM designed the oil system to bypass the oil filter some. That takes any debris and sends it directly through your cam, rod, and main bearings. No good. If your engine doesn't have a blocked bypass now, you need to keep a close eye on the engine for a while. Inspect the oil filters and I'd change the oil a couple times. Don't drive it anymore unitl this is done. What a blocked bypass does is make ALL the oil be filtered ALL the time. You should switch to a K&N filter or Moroso high flo and keep the engine under 3k until the oil get some temp in it. How do you know? The oil pressure starts to drop. If it's normally 75 at 2500 cold then wait until it's 60 to start driving normally.

These high performance motors need alot of maintenence. You should be checking the timing on a regular basis. If you start to lose timing, you will know the gear is wearing again.

I'm using a Filter Mag on my engine from the first start up. When I bought it I cut t he filter open and found nothing in there but I blocked the bypass and figure its cheap insurance.

I think you're right! and I was hoping you'd chime in.

That's exactly what Rich's neighbor/friend was telling us. He said use an adjustable slip collar, or even machine the existing collar down to fit.

Oil pressure is betw 60-70ish I believe on start up then settles down a bit.

I do have the cam card and it's a Stahl billet cam, which is why we threw the bronze in there.

I'm not sure what our current status is on the bypass. I'll talk to Rich about this before it gets driven again. This has me a bit worried.

GM runs melonized on billet core. A billet cam can have a press on cast iron gear. You may want to call the cam manufacturer. I did some serious research when my gear sheered and found the melonized to be the safest solution in most situations. It has longer service life than a bronze gear but should sheer BEFORE the cam gear. Factory cars ran a cast iron cam and distributor gear.

If you decide to stick with bronze, checking timing is important and so is the blocked bypass. One instant indicator of timing loss is a lower idle speed hot.

This issue is probably not due to the name change ...

One more thing while I'm thinking about it. A solid roller requires high spring pressures to operate properly. The cam is dependent on windage slinging oil up on the camshaft lobes for lubrication. Your idle speed should be at 1000 rpm or higher for proper lube. When the car is started cold, I'm sure it doesn't like to idle. You should keep the rpm up to lube the camshaft right away.

Yeah a call to Stahl is in order for tmrw for sure. I forgot about the nature of your first engine issue.

I think I (or maybe Rich) will call you about this. Thanks Todd.

Grunge died for a reason perhaps. :_paranoid

Yep idle has always been higher than 1000 -- currently about 1200. And it actually isn't too bad on startup. I hold it in the teens for a bit but it seems to "settle" easier/quicker than I would have thought.

We are using a pretty thick gasket on the dist currently... what do you think about swapping out for a real thin gasket?

Not sure it will be enough. There is a special tool for measuring the proper depth. I like to do things once if possible.:unibrow: A local machine shop better have one.

Doing things once is great.. if you can pull it off :)


So... we've been thinking on this all day... and one other thing that we changed when putting it back together was a higher volume oil pump. We put a Melling 10555 pump in place of the previous OEM replacement M-55 pump. This constitutes a 25% increase over OEM.

Could be the culprit, or at least contributory?

That certainly may have accelerated the failure. It would've died either way. Just a few miles down the road. Set it back up right and you should be good to go until you put in your LSX.

One other thing that can cause the gear failure is cam walk. Is there a cam button?

Ha, I was spending quite a bit of time on LS1tech for a bit there, but now since getting this motor back together and driving a bit, I really love this thing for what it is. Modern tech is great and all, but old school original is..... well, there's just something about it.

And yes there is a cam button in it.

Just making sure Rich didn't forget a piece. :D

It's in there, use it up first. :unibrow:

Dave -- couple of things.

Noticed the o'rings on the distributor.... hope your block was machined accordingly. The block should have been machined with chamfered edges on it to accept the o'ringed distributor. They are used to RAISE oil pressure...

Todd is right on about the cam -- and needing to double check with the manufacturer about what style billet cam they're putting out. As he pointed out - some are using a pressed on distributor drive gear so that running a "normal" distributor gear is possible for street engines.

There is another solution to running a bronze gear... COMP CAMS offers a synthetic carbon poly distributor gear for around $100. It's stronger than the bronze gear and if you need to run one - then this carbon poly gear will supposedly give you better life in a street roller motor. Supposedly they show NO WEAR. I say supposedly because I've never run one personally. I run the pressed on drive gear roller cams. I just don't need more BS to deal with such as inspecting my distributor gears. I have to disassemble half my air valves and my fuel system etc to get to my distributor! No thanks.

You also DO NOT want to use synthetic oil for break in of a new distributor gear -- they don't have the heavy metals used to protect engine parts like this. You need oil with the zinc etc in it.

Dave --

Forgot to say -- MOST aftermarket blocks are chamfered and then you have to use the o rings on the distributor - but if your block is not chamfered - you take the chance of cutting the rings and they end up in the oil pan... We don't need no stinking parts in our pans!! LOL

I run a Dart Little M block... so have 'run into' this issue.

another gear option that I have been researching since I currently run a bronze gear is Lunatis' "Everwear" gear. Looks like a good option as well as Comps poly gear.

http://www.lunatipower.com/ProductGr...?id=243&cid=43

Actually a few people have told us since to remove the bottom or both of the o-rings on the distributor to help with oiling.

Not sure about the machining of the block. Was done a long time ago. It's a factory 400 4 bolt.

We are using conventional VR1 oil. Were running straight 30 -- switching to 10w30 now. VR1 does have the zinc in it.

Thanks for the links on those alternative gears... so now we have a few more options it appears in addition to bronze and melonized. First thing's first -- gotta find out what Stahl used for the cam gear... left him a voicemail today. Apparently Jere isn't in the office much anymore the lady told me. Did confirm the cam by serial # and it was made in 1987! An oldie but a goodie.... I hope. :thumbsup:

Thanks guys.

If the cam is that "old" you can bet it's a billet blank... I think the pressed on gear drive is a "late" advanced feature.

Glad to hear you're running the zinc oil although this is thought to be important (as in HUGE) for the flat tappet guys - it does also help for break in of parts like the gears we're talking about - and the "cam boys" all recommend a break in period using a high zinc style oil for that purpose.

See ya soon buddy -- so keep 'er running! No excuses! :D :woot:

Well I got a message from Jere via Judy (wife?) that the cam is still billet and the gear is hobbed into the core. She said I would know what that means. LOL.. I had to look that one up! So... as you said Greg... looks like it is not like the "newer" press fit gears of more modern cams.

Jere also recommended a bronze gear, as did the tech guys at MSD. But in the end, after tech calls to both Comp Cams and Lunati on the gears you and Jason linked to (Thanks again, fellas), we felt better about what Comp had to say about their carbon poly gear. The Lunati guy could not tell me exactly what material their gear was made of. :_paranoid
Yes, the CC gear ain't cheap at $110, but we're gonna give it a shot and hope you get what you pay for sometimes. :thumbsup:

http://www.compperformancegroupstore...Category_Code=

And of course the bronze gear will be in the glove box as backup.

We also are upgrading to the Wix R series (from the standard Wix) oil filter in addition to the VR1 10w30 oil. Will change the oil at least twice here and inspect before making the trip down south.

Looking forward to seeing the fellas and having some BBQ in Bako! :cheers:

Very few tech guys no what they are talking about. :D I don't know anything about that comp gear. Couldn't be any worse than the bronze gear. I still think the melonized steel gear will give you the best longevity on the street. It's you car and I've said my peace. See you in 2 ish weeks for the ass kicking of your life.:lol:

Yeah I know.. don't you love it when a guy calls and asks you for your advice for an hour and then does the opposite? :lol:

I guess if it doesn't work I'll blame it on Greg for telling me about it. :D

Like you said Todd, it's about as clear as mud on this deal on what exactly is the thing to do, so I'll be a guinea pig on this "exotic" gear. :captain:

Sometimes I just like to go my own way and learn the hard way. Been there done that.

I may have an inferior car, but my driver mod will be the x-factor. :_paranoid

See you on a DRY weekend in OC.

If this cam gear and distributor gear matching is new to you, as it mostly was to me, here is a page I found that looks to be a helpful guide.

http://www.cpgnation.com/forum/prope...haft-2519.html

Ya, next time I see you calling at 9 I'll just politely miss your call. This gives me the opportunity to say I told you so. You don't know how much I'll appreciate that moment if it arrives. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I can take the heat....


I've owned so many motors and been there and done that so many times that I've lost count. Trust me - this whole gear deal isn't what it used to be... I'd suggest that you've added additional stresses by adding the extra volume oil pump... so checking the distributor gear for you - might become a habit similar to running the valves and changing plugs... :D

One of the things that I try to do when going to shops - or to shows - or to stuff like SEMA etc -- is to try to sort stuff like this out. Directly from the "experts" like the factory boys. I personally like doing that more than looking at the pretty paint jobs. Even then I forget half of what I've found out. I found out at the Eaton booth - that running synthetic diff gear oil was a complete NO NO if you're running a posi.... seems the stuff is TOO SLICK. REALLY? Completely opposite of what a guy would "think" - until you talk to the guys that build 'em for a living. Who knew?

Anyway - good luck with the gear swap.... and glad you found it before you had a catastrophe at high rpms.

Yeah yeah I know... I am really setting myself up here aren't I. :lol:

Next time I'll call you before your bedtime... like 7:30? :D

I'm glad you let me know about this gear. Great to know about all the options out there.

And yes the HV oil pumps really seem to help add to the problem from all the info I have found. Switching to "lighter" oil and this poly gear material, in addition to blocking the oil bypass, are all the things that hope to get us on the right path here. If not, the gear material should all end up in the filter and we can go back to a bronze. Guess we'll find out.

Ya know, the advice on SEMA, etc. and being there to gain knowledge is a great call. I guess your years of experience does bring more to the table eh?

Thanks -- can you smell that BBQ? Rodger is probably fabbing some crazy custom gusseted BBQ with a blower on it for the meet up. :woot: