I have the ramjet 350 motor in my car, and yes it has the knock sensor. Is there any way to add a gear drive unit with a engine equipped with a knock sensor? or am I out of luck? let me know the steps to take if any

nate

 

the knock senser will pick up on the noise, there are quiet gear drives ,but i doubt if you want the quiet one

 

I have a peter jackson duel idler in my 84 corvette an the car runs perfectly with it.No knocking no codes don,t no why but never had any problems relating to the geardrive.
Hope this helps



Jeff

 

Nate,

You should be able to install a well-meshed (quiet) gear drive without any problems. Buick 231 V-6 and Chevrolet 262 V-6 engines are equipped with gear driven balance shafts (driven from the timing set) and of course have detonation sensors. LT1 and LT4 engines have gear driven water pumps, again driven by the timing set. They also have detonation sensors.

These engines came this way from the factory by the millions and obviously don't have "ghost noise" problems with the gears. As long as you don't get a noisy gear set,you should be able to use one. Our old design detonation sensorsarenot as sensitive assome of the newer ones, but the ECM isn't as sophisticated, either.

 

Thansk guys.. so there is no way to "unhook my knock sensor" or anything like that? I would really like the noise of the gear drive, thats what sux is the knock sensor. So there is no mods I could do to get it to work? thanks for the replies.


Nate

 

my geardrive is pretty loud and like i said i have had no problems.


Jeff

 

No you can;t just unplug the knock sensor.

You might be able to get away with a quiet drive..but why bother? Not really any gains from one except the cool noise which is the problem. I say stick with a chain.

 

DAMN KNOCK SENSOR. JEFF85IROC is really cool guy, been talking to him, and he says he has no problems with his noisy setup with a knock sensor. If I do put this in, and start the car, what would happen? would it turn back off? will it not run correctly? what exactly will happen if i put this gear drive in?

nate

 

please anyone?? what would happen?? i cant sleep til i know, or it would drive me nuts all nite.

nate

 

The knock sensor would pick up the noise as spark knock, and would in turn retard the timing in 4* increments until the knock was neutralized. Obviously it is false spark know, so it wouldn't go away, and the computer would always be retarding the timing advance and the car would be sluggish, and get bad gas mileage. I want one too, but they are costly, and a not super easy to install, so I have decided not to risk it. Remember, every car is different, his car may work okay with a gear drive, but it doesn't mean every car will. Plus, it may could be retarding a few degrees, and you may be losing power that you don't know about.

 

Why not convert your MEFI for the 7730 SD ECM? They are both Speed Density systems and the 7730 supports an O2 sensor to boot (better for part throttle).

Then you can tune your eprom to do what ever you want as the SD 7730 is probably the BEST hacked ECM there is. I've suggested this conversion a number of times and it's very easily do-able. Just no one has "bitten the bullet". We'd be happy to assist you on the DIY Prom Board.

Then, if you want to mod your engine (including altering how the KS affects the timing based of various conditions) you can do it. This way you could retain your KS and "tune" it's sensitivity. In fact, this is what most of the stock SD L98s have to do to get the power out of them YET retain the safety of the KS.

 

I have been doing lots of research on gear drives lately and have yet to come across anyone with knock sensor problem. The gear drive companies are just assuming that it MAY happen and are covering themselves. "quiet" gear drives are pretty loud, people will probably think you're running a blower (even though a trained ear can easily tell a blower from a gear drive). The "loud" versions are just insane and get REALLY annoying, my friend has one. He thought it sounded so cool for about a week now he wishes he got the quiet one. I say you should get one and if you have knock problems (you'll be the first one outta 100+ people I've read using them) I will buy it off you

 

wow, thats pretty awesome. the thing thats funny abou thirdgen.org, is you can post a question, and loose all your hopes of getting smoething you want, but then someone comes back and says, yeah it will work, then your hopes get built back up. heheh.. its quite funny. which gear drive do you recommend me getting? I will buy one, i just need to know which one would be best for my ramjet motor. also, are they really hard to put in? i hear they are easy, just take off timing chain cover, undo the cam bolt, and dont move the crank, just line up the teeth and put it back in.. are they very hard? thanks for the reply

 

The Ram-Jet motor is a "87-up" roller style motor correct? (thats a dumb question ...it must be) I think Pete Jackson is the only one who makes a gear drive for 87-up roller motors and its the "quiet" one. It says "minor machining may be required" but once again, I have not heard of anyone needing to do any machining to make it work. Its a simple bolt-on.

I'm probably going to get a lot of crap saying it will work even though I have no personal experience with them but nobody on here has ever had problems with using one. A couple of months ago I posted a thread on here asking the same question (I can't seem to find it in the archives though) and a few people said they were using them with no problems and one person even posted a link to a sound file of his car running with the "quiet" drive.

 

I have a PJ 'quiet' drive in a car here (TPI, knock sensor) and havent seen any false knock. I dont know of a single person who has had a problem with the quiet drive. I know a couple who have the noisy one and it goes both ways from what I have seen, some with problems, some without. If thats related to the drive or not I dont know.

BTW, my 'quiet' drive is plenty noisy, nothing quiet about it.

 

It said that the geardrive i put in my car might need machining but it never.Out of the 4 peter jackson drives i have put in i hav'nt had to machine any of them.

 

Yea, I remember reading that in the instructions. Ive done 2, neither one needed machining. I think that the clearance should be checked carefully though just to be safe.

 

I think I will get a PJ one then.. ive never done one of these before, i dont know really the exact steps to doing it, but hopefully I can figure it out.. so the "QUIET" versions are still loud? can you hear them easily or do you have to get right up to the car to hear it? how difficult is it really to do these? i apprecaite the replies. keep em coming

Nate

 

Noisy? I dunno... you tell me.

10' from the front of the car, hood open:
http://home.earthlink.net/~wtomfoster/gp.wav

Its not hard to put one in, really no harder than putting in a timing chain. They come with directions for the gear drive specific items, just follow them and you'll be fine.

 

thanks madmax.. it sounds very good, its not too loud either.. I am going to do it, now I just need to wait for my check.. also I think im starting to overheat, this is the first summer my new engine has went through, and today driving in 75 degree weather it hit 230 degrees, only like twice, then flushed back down to 200, but 230 seems a little too hot,. so now ive got a whole other issue starting up.. looks like dual electric fan time. now I just gotta find one with the shroud, etc, and if i do that, i misewell convert to serpentine in the process and do it all, the gears, the serpentine and the electric fans.. now I just need to find someone that has them all. .thanks guys

nate

 

i would advise no using a gear drive....i am pulling mine cause of the fact i couldn't hear the motor pininging and it popped a piston

 

I'm running the PJ quiet gear drive and I've had no probs.

I love the low hum - makes people think twice.