Just curious. I was reading a few posts today, and read that if you run a hydraulic roller camshaft, you have to have this special distributor to go with it. Is that true? Or is it just a special distributor GEAR that you need? Currently, I'm running an MSD Street Pro Billet distributor part # 8361. Here is the description...


JEGS High Performance - MSD Billet and Pro-Billet Distributors


This distributor worked fine with my old hydraulic flat tappet camshaft, but I will be switching over to a roller camshaft with my new engine and want to make sure that this is going to work. Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks again, Paul Moore

 

the roller cams are made from a harder material, so a normal distributor gear would get chewed up faster. I think that's the thing, I might have that bass-ackwards though. Either way, usually a bronze distributor gear ($12 tops) is what's used.

 

That's often the case in the billet rollers. Most street hydro-rollers are made with a gear that can work with the iron dizzy gears, not requiring a bronze dizzy gear.

 

So I should be fine with what I have, or do you recommend changing out the gear anyway?

 

Ask the company about what gear you can run.

 

Looks like I'll be calling COMP Cams.....

 

Do you have the cam now? It's pretty obvious if you tap on the gear itself if it's made of steel or iron.

 

Nope, the entire short block is being built by the machine shop as we speak so I can't physically put my hands on it. I'm just trying to get everything in order BEFORE the new engine is done and gets here so that I'm not running around liek a chicken with my head cut off....

 

typically comp cams do not require the special gear that i know of.

 

Do yourself a favor and leave the bronze gears for guys that like constantly pulling the dizzy checking wear patterns and amount of teeth left on the gear itself since this is a critical step to ensure yet ANOTHER motor does'nt fall victim to bronze gear failure due to bad wear pattern.

Order your cam with the pressed on steel gear and use any stock OEM or aftermarket iron geared distributor you want and leave the worries to other things like how your going to pay for your next tank of fuel. I can think of 10 engines right now that fragged from wear pattern not being 100% correct and it gummed up and stuck the bronze gear shavings all over the bearings and wiped out lower end rods/mains and a few cam bearings as well. These bronze gears have no place in any engine IMO!!

 

does anybody know if a gm lt4 hotcam is hardened? I assume it is seeing it came from gm.

 

IHI: So I should just be able to use the MSD distributor with the gear that it came with? I was only asking because I had read a post here somewhere, but you know how misinformation gets around pretty quick. I'd rather be safe then sorry.

 

I'm not exactly sure on OEM grinds, never got into the factory stuff and never plan to so I cant answer with any certainty that their roller cams come with a pressed on iron gear or not.

If ordering an aftermarket bumpstick, you need to specify that you want it to come with a pressed on iron gear so your able to run any old distributor and gear without having to install a bronze or composite dis. gear. If you dont specify that you want an iron gear it will just come with the standard billet gear "milled in" and that will eat up a standard iron gear on a "stock type distributor"

Dont know if I'll ever have the ballz to build a track only car, big investment for only a few minutes total fun per month so as in the past and near future i will build whatever I build to be able to stand up to the abuses of the street, cuz if it lives out there the track will be a piece of cake, not to mention it's nice to take it down the road to find/test anything new before wasting your time/money on a new set-up only to find a problem right off the bat then have to load up and go home to fix it

 

You might have seen something from another of my posts...I still need more of an answer (although this helped a lot)

Lets say the Pro Billet MSD Dizzy (8366) [IRON gears from MSD] and the Comp Cam have the gears usually ran from the respective factories...is there a problem with the iron MSD gears and whatever comes on the Comp Cam??

I don't see any wear on the dizzy gear but can't see the cam gear.