Can it be done b/c i've shell out two oil pump drive gears and am afraid that next time i won't catch it soon enough (if you can ever catch it SOON enough)?

Maybe some kind of electric motor to turn the driveshaft instead of that little gear? that would be great to have pressure in the oil system before you start it every time

 

never heard of such a thing for an LT1.

Something is wrong if you have wiped out 2 drive gears. I know people who have gone 150K and never had a probelm. Oil pump drive gears are not a common and repeating problem with the LT1.

What drive gear are you usung and what cam gear?

 

well the first gear was steel and it totally quit, the second was cast and it was headed in the same direction, and now my brass gear ate it after 6k. i have a comp cam, the first steel gear ruined the cam that it was on so the cam i have now has only 10k on it. I can't use a composite b/c they don't fit on an lt1 shaft.
maybe there is some kind of funky core shift going on in there. I have had the motor apart and there weren't any marks like the engine had every exploded. could it be that i'm running 1.6 rr's with too stiff of springs and causing the camshaft to flex

 

u might have somethng going on in the cam bearing area... have it checked and spec'd before u go any further.

 

Was the cam ordered for an LT1???
YOU are having a problem this is not an LT1 problem it has to do with your specific parts, better to fix that than attempt to reinvent the wheel.

The rest of us use cams with appropriate gears so we can just use a stock drive.

 

HYDRAULIC ROLLER-For use with LT1, with Hyd. Hyd. 1500 to 5500 07-305-8 276HR-14 276 290 220 230 .510 .510 114°
programmer or chip.
this was the first cam

HYDRAULIC ROLLER-Good for LT1 with Hyd. Hyd. 1500 to 5500 07-502-8 269HR-12 269 276 218 224 .495 .503 112°
programmer or chip and upgraded exhaust.
That's the cam that i have now

comp reccommends a composite gear with both
what gear should i use

 

a composite one perhaps?


you said you tried a steel and a cast one, neither is composite



look here
http://www.compperformancegroupstore...Category_Code=

you might need to make/have made a spacer to use one, since IIRC, the stock shaft is an oddball size

 

i thought about that before i put the brass one in but the shaft is .427" and a spacer to make it .500" would be .0365" thick that seems kinda thin to be machining.

could i get the intake machined for a distributor and just use an old dist. shaft? it would be easier to change if it goes out again i just don't know about the clearance...cost?

 

what someone needs to do is make a complete drive out of metal, with a .500 shaft, but I doubt if there is really the call for it

 

What pump and weight of oil are you using now?

 

when the first gear went we assumed the hv pump was the culprit so i had that changed to a regular melling. i run mobil 1 10w-30 Synthetic at cold idle it ran about 60-70, warm idle it held at about 25-30, maybe the cold pressure killed it,

btw, the gears that failed were worn more on one side than the other which seems VERY strange to me, if something is out of line it doesn't explain uneven wear, which makes me think that there is some kind of flex going on in the cam. maybe a bad cam bearing?

to explain the severity of the uneveness of wear. the first gear that shelled had about 4-5 teeth completely gone on one side and on the opposite the teeth were about .030" thick. the cam's teeth were worn in the same pattern but not as severely

 

i think this is my real problem and a composite gear alone would just be a band-aid, i really don't know what to do. the motor i have now is a 355 with H-beam rods and JE forged pistons and it's really a strong motor, however it uses about a quart of oil per 1500mi. should i pull the motor now and check/replace the cam bearings or should i just make it work until i can afford to build a stroker?

I'm a student right now so I don't have the time or money to rebuild it right away.
how much should it cost to build a strong 383 from scratch?
how much if I could re-use the block, rods, and heads?
suggestions?

 

what do you mean "worn more on one side" ?

can you put up pics?

 

that was my brass gear


that was the first gear that i had fail, and this is the cam


this was the gear that i replaced with the brass one 6k ago so my cam didn't end up like the first

 

I am also interested in this topic for I am having the same problems. I was also thinking the Melling HV/HP pump was the culprit. I just keep buying GM replacement shafts at 50 bux a pop. I am running the hotcam and it shows no sign of wear whatsoever. I run Royal Purple and cant quite figure it out. Oil pressure always stayed above 60psi though.