Hi guys. I'm going to run a H/C package from Lloyd and the cam is a billet cam. I understand the billet requires a bronze distributor gear on the oil pump drive. Bronze gears leaves much to be desired on a daily driven street car, they just wear too often. I've been searching for an alternative. Here is the problem, the oil pump drive shaft is .427 diameter. Most distibutor gear diameters are .500 or .491 for sbc. I already checked with Comp Cams and they don't make a Polmer gear for the LT1 .427 shaft. They don't even make the gear in house to be able to offer a custom one. So then I called Crane, they have a carberized gear that is made of billet to solve the problem of fast wear times of bronze. Problem is, they don't have them in the .427 shaft size either. According to them, they were looking into it to make them for LT1's but they found out that there is no demand for it. Apparently, Crane says that what racers have been doing is that they are having a machine shop make a bushing to fill the void between the .491/.500 gear and the drive assembly's .427 shaft. Has anybody here done this or know of someone who has? Anybody know of a really good machine shop that can make one? I would really like to find a solution to this since I really like the cam profile. Let me know guys, sorry for the long post.

 

I have seen a few oil pump drive gears used with Bushings. I know the person who made the bushings as well, but let me find out if he doesn't mind me putting his name here. With that said, i am just running a bronze gear with my Billet cam.

 

I'd be interested in buying a bushing. It's hard enough to find the .427 bronze gear. Jegs has been giving me the run-around trying to find one and Crane has 2 in stock, but hasn't shipped me one yet.

I would rather have the bushing and run the comp polymer or crane steel gear.

Let me know what you find out.

 

You can send me a pm if you're worried about that, let me know. Thanks Anybody else?

 

You could find a gear with a smaller ID and have it bored out to .427". Otherwise I think Bret makes the bushing you're looking for.

 

I think Crane makes one. A buddy of mine had this problem when he installed a Comp gear which got chewed up really bad. He then got a Crane gear suggested by Bret which was supposed to be the right size and as far as I know its doing fine. Of course unless you pulled out the cam theres no way of knowing for sure. Just talk to Bret.

 

on the street billet cams that i've had run through my hands, the dist gear part of the cam has always been a pressed on and pinned cast iron piece and then they put the rear cam journal on. i'm pretty sure they'd offer the same thing on lt1 cores, but maybe bret will chime in and clear this up.

 

This is true for some, but not all. I believe the cams he used to offer had this, however Comp hasn't been offering this or something. I discussed this with Bret a couple months ago when he did my cam. PS: I believe Bret is out of town this weekend, so it may be a couple days before hes able to clear this up.

 

I know for sure the gear is not iron. Lloyd sent me the bronze gear to go with the cam he sold me. I didn't know at the time that it was going to be billet. If I don't find a sloution, I'll just switch the cam, but I don't really want to unless there's no choice. Bronze wears too fast, and it's a real pain to take the intake off just for a distributor gear change.

 

I just bought a billet cam from bret and he sent me a crane .427 bronze. I was not aware that these wear out that fast. How fast are we talking in terms of mileage for a daily driver.

Also what are the syptoms of it wearing out. Will it start to take out other parts if you do not catch it right away.

I might be switching to a different one and run a bushing should take ten minutes max for me to spin one up on our lathe.

The list never ends for things that need to be altered.

Thanks for pointing this out guys.

 

I guess we'll know here in a few months.

 

WAIT WAIT WAIT......I too am running a Bret cam, and LE heads, and I was never even told to run a different "bronze" distributor gear. Although I did recieve one, a few weeks before I got my heads and cam, I thought crane had sent me someone else's order. I have a bronze .427 Crane Cam distributor gear, but I just put in the stock one!!! Someone please help me, what should I do???

 

You should pull your intake and put the bronze gear on immediately.

 

definately, and then change the oil a few times(change it, warm up, change it)

 

Aluminum bronze oil pump gears are very durable. It's the same material that is used on high-end conn rod small end bushings and other high-end gear applications.

FWIW: Make sure that .030 wall thickness bushing is very concentric. You should consider shrinking it into the oversized bore rather than making it a slip fit.