Yup you are right on.

 

Hmmm...HANG ON HERE.
I was reading what all I need to do if I remove the cam as far as removing stuff from the front and stumbled into this pic on SB's website....
Look at the Comp Cam front compared to the stocker right beside it...
The Comp Cam looks just like mine with a beveled edge !! Its a little blurry but its there. Also, there is no way that I can figure that my cam could have gotten worn that way making the bevel as the retainer surface is flat and could not have worn it that way...I'm thinking it was beveled to start with like the Comp Cam in this pic.

Maybe mine's not all that bad??

 

I measured my cam dowel and it's definitely right around the .65". The thing is, if you look at 2QUIK6's picture of his cam gear installed, my dowel sticks through the gear more than this. Looking at my opti, it can take a lot more dowel than what is showing here. I would think that this is too short. I don't know though. My opti also doesn't show any marks (from the tip of the cam dowel) inside the dowel insert.

http://hometown.aol.com/onebadwskier...ocket-gap2.jpg

 

Hang on, in this pic you mention, notice the gear bolts are not in and that pic was showing that the cam nose wasn't fitting snuggly against the sprocket back, there's about a 1/16-1/8 inch gap between sprocket back and cam nose mounting surface so thats why the dowl looks so short in the pic. Look closely and you can see the two are not together (I think I was asking when I posted that pic if it was ok to installed the bolts and tighten them to "pull" the cam and sprocket together....I since found that the recess in the sprocket had not slipped over the cam nose yet so its ok).
Now, the cam dowl is just a tad bit shorter than the stocker, but it makes it about half way down into the opti dowl insert hole.

 

Ooohhh, ok, that makes sense. Sorry for the mixup. I was wondering how your opti worked with that small amount of dowel sticking out. You've helped me a ton 2QUIK6 (along with others), and I really appreciate it.

 

Looking at this pic, I noticed that your cam is almost flush with the retainer. Mine protrudes out quite a bit more than this, and I still get rubbing. I don't understand how you don't have more wear.

Mine:
http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?i...sc00146wk2.jpg

Yours (2QUIK6):
http://hometown.aol.com/onebadwskier...amretainer.jpg

 

Here is the way I see it.
When the cam is in the block and the reatainer is installed, that retainer prevents the cam from walking toward the front.

When the cam sprocket is installed that prevents the cam from walking toward the rear.

In both case the fixed cam retainer and only the cam retainer does all the work in capturing the camshaft and ensuring things line up. I doubt the oil pump gear does any locating cause if the cam slid back there would be teeth grinding.

Something clearly caused the cam to want to walk toward the rear and cause excessive drag on that retainer to show that much wear. It might be uneven cam lobes, bad bearings or bad lifters. I dont see how a timing set can cause that.

 

Actually I think its more of the angle in my pics, I took these to better see how far the cam protrudes out... measuring with my simple measuring tools tells me the that cam nose protrudes out enough (at least at this moment..it could walk back when running who knows) so that the depth of the recess in the cam gear is less than the amount the cam protudes, therefore it would not rub.
Again, I think those wear marks on my cam retainer were from the stock cam and gear as the ED sprocket has very little wear marks and they are not wide enough to cover the surface of the retainer like that.
The cam nose length from the retainer contact surface to the sprocket mounting surface is the exact same length/thickness as the stock cam.

Also, notice in the pic wihtout the cam retainer, the cam edge surface that would contact the retainer is flush with the block decking so its out as far as it could go if the retainer was on.

 

I think I had a similar problem to yours a couple years ago. I installed a new cam and a cloyes double roller timing chain at the same time. Started to hear a recurring rubbing noise, mostly at idle. Finally took everything apart and found that the back of the cam gear rubbed against the cam retainer plate:



this is all new wear, and only after a couple thousand miles (I installed the cam retainer plate backwards)


I happened to have a new lt4 timing chain set at the time, installed that in place of the cloyes and the problem went away.

However, I just got done rebuilding the whole motor and had the rebuilder install the original cloyes timing set (the lt4 set stretched, not HD). He said he cleaned up the area on the back of the gear... I really hope he did...

 

Here's a pic of my 224/230 install years ago on my old shortblock.

http://www.zmydust.com/images/headsandcam/P1010065.JPG