I'm running a retro fit hydraulic roller cam in a carbed sbc. I believe its cast steel. I originally had a bronze distributor gear on it. The timing kept jumping off. I pulled the distributor out and the teeth on the gear were worn to a point and knife edged. So I assume the cam gear was eating the teeth on the softer bronze distributor gear.

What type of distributor gear should I be running with my cam?

 

If its billet you got 2 choices, lunati everwear (which are awesome) or a good AMPCO-45 bronze gear. You can get those from Straub technologies. Most the rest are chinese made and junk. I had one wear down in 15 miles! Granted the dist was not shimmed properly but still. Thats another thing to check.

If its an iron gear use your stock dist gear

Double check the enplay on the cam and again proper clearance in the dist plays a role there, too.

 

Oh I thought the distance between the distributor base on the block and the cam on all small block chevy's were the same. Was your distributor too long and you had to out shims underneath it?

 

They should be all the same as you said, intakes too but always good to double check. Never know if an intake casting could be off, thicker gaskets etc can throw it off. Mine was shimmed too tight initially and was binding once warmed up. MSD makes a slip collar to help out with this, just an option.
How is the endplay on the cam? Where is it set up at?

 

I'm not really sure what the end play on the cam is. How exactly do you measure that? And don't you have to take off the timing chain to do that?

 

Did the car come with the retro-roller valve train in it already? Depends on what type of timing chain cover you're running…mine has a provision for checking the cam thrust by mounting a dial indicator on the cover. For any retro roller cam I know of, you need to run a timing chain cover with a thrust button.

Then you need to find a way to move the cam to it's full forward direction, and push it fully the opposite way. Should be around .010-.015 as I recall. I set mine with the intake off so I can use a flat tip on the side of the cam lobes to move the cam back and forth.

 

Yea its a 79 block so I have a retrofit hydraulic roller in it. And I have a summitt timing chain cover. I had a shop put it together. And had it run on the dyno. So I'm sure there is a thrust button.

I would go back to the shop to get the end play numbers but shortly after I got my motor back the shop went out of business. Haha. (just my luck) And after I put about 5k miles on it the timing started jumping off. That's when I realized it was the distributor gear.