Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

I got a 355 vortec Superram in my 86 TA and I have only had the car running a short time. When I say short, I mean it may have 5-7 hours of actual run time and zero time on the road. I bought a summit rebuild kit (pistons, rings, blah blah) from summit when I started the build. Well at the time those kits came with Melling High Volume Oil Pumps. I am also running an LT4 Hot cam in the motor.. My dizzy is a piece from DUI distributors out of Tennessee. My problem is I am going through Dizzy gears like newborns go thru diapers. They dont last any amount of time before I see wear on the teeth or completely snap them while tuning the car and it shuts off.. I have burned through 3 Steel Gears (2 of which were melonized, recommended for this cam by GM) and one iron. I have been told to run bronze, but think that might not be right. I found out I had the first two or three overshimmed at the bottom and corrected that. Now Im afraid to pull it out to see if their is any damage to it. I was also told that running a HVOP will wear out a gear faster than a normal oil pump... Does anyone else have this problem, or has had this problem or have any advice? This is killing me.. The only good thing about this is Ive gotten really good at stabbing dizzies!! LOl Thanks in advance for any advice or feedback anyone may have.

EvilCartman

iTrader: (1)

The gear that came with my MSD distributor still looks great after 6 years of running. No abnormal wear showing. Not sure off the top of my head what it's made out of but it's not a bronze one. You've got some issues if you're going through gears like that.

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

Before you go any further how tight is the dizzy pushing on the oil pump drive shaft? When bolted down it should not be tight, there should be some up and down play in the shaft. If there is none, shim up the distributor with shims or a double gasket. This may very well be your problem.

J91

I run a Melling HVOP, w/ a roller cam, for that dist. you need a bronze gear, regular steel gear will not work. MSD (I run) come w/ special gears that will stand up to the roller cam. The problem is not the oil pump, it's the cam (roller cams are hardened). Contact your cam mfr. and see what there recomendation is.
I have seen two people w/ roller motors go through this, one a SBC and one a Ford Windsor motor.

Gumby

bronze gear, problem solved 99% of the time.

1% like above if an engine has been machined all around, the tiny bit of metal loss can make the hold down, try n jam the gear in place, instead of just holding it there.

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

WOW.. so maybe I should be running a bronze gear. Its really odd to me because I have the GMPP catalog here and it specifically says "When running this cam, a melonized steel gear must be used or engine damage will occur." That is what has got my head so screwed up over this deal. When I get back home I will pull it out and check for wear. has anyone heard of the everwear gear from Comp or Crane Cams? Is that one better for the money?

Gumby- If I jam the dizzy down, I will bottom it out on the oil pump and cause more problems than I need. Look at what Twin Turbo had said. But I will definitely look into this bronze gear. Thank you.

Cartman- Is their anyway you might be able to find out what gear you have? i know its been six years and I dont want you to go yanking dizzies on a perfectly good running car, but I really would like some help on finding a gear thats not gonna shred after an hour worth of tuning and idling in the driveay.

bjankuski

I had this problem on my 355 with a high volume pump and some solutions are switch to a composite gear made by comp cams it is expessive, around $100.00 but it should last longer then anything else. The other solution which I chose was to use an old time racer trick of adding in v-groove in the distributer housing directly above the cam gear and distributer gear messing point. This v-groove is .0625 wide and .030 deep. It adds pressurized oil to the gear contact position and it has completely solved my gear wear issue. I used to wear out a melonized gear every 2000 miles, since the mod I have driven 20,000 miles with no wear.

JakeJr

The HotCam doesn't require a bonze gear; the gear pressed on those cams are compatible with melonized (not bronze) GM gears. Don't get confused on when a bronze gear is required; the cam (itself) and the gear are most often different alloys.

It's the high loading of the HV oil pump that's killing them. I went through four before I found the HV pump to be the cause. Four gears on three different engines (355 L98, 415 L98 and 388 LT1, with different camshafts and even different oil pumps (although all were HV versions). TWO OF THE GEARS WERE NEW GM MELONIZED GEARS. HV pump even killed them!

A while back, on another Forum, I posted a detailed account of all I went through. One single thing surfaced: ALL the failures had ONLY one thing in common, use of a HV oil pump.

Change to a standard volume oil pump and watch your problem disappear. Don't just take my word for it; check with ShoeBox and he'll tell you the same thing - Ditch the HV pump.

Jake

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

Thats pretty interesting stuff, didnt know such a thing existed. Maybe I will look into it.

JakeJr- Thanks for the input, I kinda dig your theory, but you also should take into account that countless other cars (thirdgen or not) are running hvops and having no issues at all. Im not diggin into the block unless I have absolutely no choice. I just finished putting it together less than 6 months ago. I will definitely keep your advice on hand. Just not ready to dig in the block if its not truly necessary just yet. Thank you.

Guest

I wouldnt worry about the bronze gear stuff. I would be more concerned with the height of the distributor, many times it is off especially when you have a machined block, heads, and possibly intake. Often they need spacers between the manifold and distributor to get the gear alignment correct.

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

Yeah im still checkin on that also. At first the distributor had 3 shims on it, I knew nothing about that. So I took two of them off and tried that. But I dont know what the results of that is yet, I still havent pulled it to check the wear on it. Thats my first thing to do. After that I can make some adjustments and decisions on gears.

JakeJr

Well, at least you have the built-in safety factor that if your new gear fails, the engine will shut down. So you won't end up killing the bearings.

On LT1/4s, however, if the same thing happens the engine will continue to run WITH NO OIL PRESSURE. In that case, the CHECK GAUGES light will illuminate; issue becomes seeing the CHECK GAUGES light in time.

This gear eating problem is fairly common, reported on other Forums from time to time. It's not universal where every engine running a HV/HP oil pump suffers a failure though. Just enough to cause concerns; sort of like the first issue of BeeHives. In my instances, I eliminated every other variable before swapping oil pumps.

Had the oil pump swap NOT worked my next move was going to be using Comp's composite gear.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're making out.

Jake

stroker_SS

What weight oil are you running? You certainly don't need 20w50 with a HVOP.

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

Believe Im running Valvoline Synthetic Blend 10-30.. I gotta change the oil with every gear I break to get the metal chips out of the engine. Im truckin and wont get home for a week and then have to pray for decent weather so I can pull the distributor out. Will order a composite in the meantime to speed up the process. Stay tuned as I will update you all. Thanks for all input and advice so far.

hotrod85z

iTrader: (1)

i made the mistake of runnin a high volume pump on my last engine, damn! i kept chewingh up gears too, swapped back to a stock m55 melling pump and : problem solved!

i was running a zz4 cam with a melonized gm gear

even in our streetstock cars we run stock volume, you only need 10psi per 1000 rpms a stock pump will push 75 wide open, more than enough, also: a hv pump is a parasitic drag on your cam n dizzy gear, thats why they chew up, smokey yunick wouldnt even waste his time with them, a m55 melling blueprinted and deburred is the most reliable pump for tha buck...

but... if you really dont wanna pull the pan n swap pumps, run thin oil and listen to jakejr, just use the bronze gear but its still not a permanent fix

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

I finally got home and got brave and pulled the dizzy out. the gear looks good (melonized steel from GM). The car had run about 25-30 minutes before I yanked it out. So its possible that I have solved the problem, by just removing some shims that were on the distributor by the gear. I got the composite gear today and I think Im jus goin to hold on to it just in case I blow thru this gear later down the road.

JakeJr

[QUOTE=86copchaser76;4413068]I finally got home and got brave and pulled the dizzy out. the gear looks good (melonized steel from GM). The car had run about 25-30 minutes before I yanked it out. So its possible that I have solved the problem, by just removing some shims that were on the distributor by the gear. I got the composite gear today and I think Im jus goin to hold on to it just in case I blow thru this gear later down the road

One other good POSSIBLE thing, other than the engine will shut off since you're running what I'll refer to as an "older style" distributor, is that a post I read on this issue says no bearing damage is likely to occur.

From what I've read, should the gear begin to wear excessively the particles will be too fine to cause damage. Reading that didn't make me feel all that re-assured though, but at least it'something positive.

It took just over 2k miles before my last new gear to fail on my 388 LT1.

Something to watch for is if your oil pressure gauge STOPS NOT HOLDING STEADY. If it begins to bounce, first suspect the gear; that's the first warning so don't ignore it.

Jake

t-top havoc

iTrader: (3)

Sounds like you'll have a sure answer when you get some good run time on the motor.
My only Q--
Was the pump checked before install---clearences...binding?

My last Bigblock had a hi- vol. Melling, but no roller cam. 8 yrs//no prob.
This is interesting! I hope there will not be any motor damage!!

I'll follow this until it's all done-- may or may not get another for our next Bigblock build later in summer.

Good luck

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

Jake Jr- Yeah i am pretty hopeful that all works out now. I apprecciate your optimism with the fact that the car will shut off after teeth are ground away, and yeah it does. Thanks for your input, reall yhelped me put some of this into perspective before making any major decisions.

T-Top- I basically took the kit out of the box and mounted it all up. I didnt think enought to check any of that stuff. Might have been a good idea, but this is my first build and it was a long process. I have learned a great deal form this build, so I know what to look out for for the next one and what further measures and precautions to take before I start bolting stuff together

t-top havoc

iTrader: (3)

Helping a friend back late '70s, he did the clean & spin thing.
Another friend in '80s would always " blue print " his, no matter what it was used for. If I hadn't seen them do it, I wouldn't have known either.
I'm still learning this stuff too.
Have fun!!

SSC

The oil pump had nothing to do with this issue. they do sell and upgraded oil pump shaft with a steel collar to prevent the plastic POS collar from breaking but that has nothing to do with the gear on the dis. Sounds more along the lines of a cam issue cam walking back. Now since this is a roller engine did you put the cam plate on the front of the engine?? I dont have a pic handy but Im sure some one will chime in with one. If your block is an older block your probably going to need to add a cam button to prevent this from happening again.

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

I have the 87-95 4 bolt block and yes there is a cam plate on the front of the block, I also bought a steel oil pump shaft from AZ when I was building the motor. Like I said, I think I may have solved the issue, by removing some shims on the bottom of the dis. I will drop it back in and run the car more to make sure all is ok now.

danandamy

Be sure and post if it fixes the problem, in case anyone in the future is using the search feature do to having the same issue.

Dan

Copchaser

iTrader: (2)

Update: so far everything is good with the car. I have slapped in new plugs and took the car for a racey ride around the block a couple times. Everything seems to be good so far. Will let u know. I have to take the car and get it smogged and have the chip tuned. So stay tuned, I will fill you in in the next couple weeks.... Thanks