billet roller ate cam pos. gear

[Jay J]

I installed an ATR billet roller in the wife's T--all was wonderful until I put 4K on the car. Rode home on the hook. Cam Position sensor drive gear was whittled down to where it would no longer turn the oil pump. (yeah, I put in a call for ATR, but have not heard back and was in hopes that one of the gurus might have an answer-- source for a stronger gear--bronze, cryo, ??
Thanks
J J

 

[John Wilde]

You can get the stronger gear from a couple vendors.
TA is the first that comes to mind.

 

[Rickracer]

Billet cams need a bronze gear. I hate to be the bearer of bad news...

But now you have a bigger problem. Essentially, you have just taken a grinder and ground up your cam gear into your oil pan. The cam should be just fine, but I'm not sure what to tell you about getting all that metal out of the oiling system. Every time I've seen that happen, there was crankshaft damage, and all the bearings had metal embedded in them. The cam lobes may even have some metal scratches, pits, or other damage. I'm surprized that ATR didn't note in the cam installation instructions that the driven gear should be replaced with a bronze gear.

 

[750H.P.V6]

Guys,

I would suspect a mis-alignment problem myself. While its true that the cam is billet steel the distributor drive gear is iron and slides onto the nose of the cam. Since the gear on the cam sensor is of the same hardness neither one should wear at an accelerated rate unless there is another problem.

Neal

 

[PEACHS]

Cam Gear roller

How did you set up the front cover end play on the camshaft? If there is to much clearence then the cam will move in and out of the front of the block. That would cause alot of wear on the cam sensor gear. Your front clearence should be around .005 -.008 that would keep the cam in alignment with the cam sensor gear. You will have to take down the motor and inspect all the parts.

 

[TurboJim]

Originally posted by Jay J
I installed an ATR billet roller in the wife's T--all was wonderful until I put 4K on the car. Rode home on the hook. Cam Position sensor drive gear was whittled down to where it would no longer turn the oil pump. (yeah, I put in a call for ATR, but have not heard back and was in hopes that one of the gurus might have an answer-- source for a stronger gear--bronze, cryo, ??
Thanks
J J

2 things come to mind. When putting my engine together I found my old cam sensor was very tight. Remembering about the bronze gear I got a replacement sensor drive as I knew the drag would eat the gear, oe 2, if you put in a oil pump spacer kit (high volume kit) you might be putting too much stain on the gear.

 

[1320n10]

BOP Performance sells a carbon fibre or some sort space age plastic gear. I am told it is way stronger than any metal gear?? But if the gears are not meshed right that is a problem.

 

[Jay J]

Thanks for the timely input, guys... Looks like at the very least that the pan will be coming off for inspection (pull some bearing caps too) Hopefully the PTE remote oil filter saved the turbo...
Jay J

 

[Chuck Leeper]

??????????

IS the ATR cam made from the odd fire billet? If so, then the bronze gear goes on the end of the cam, with the rest of the stackup. [spacer, milled down fuel pump eccentric, etc]. The cam sensor remains w/ the OEM gear on it.

 

[Jay J]

It's a Crane Steel Billet that ATR modifies. The slide on drive gear appears to be Billet steel also -- it has no apparent damage whereas the cam position sensor gear (soft iron) looks like it's been filed with a grinder. What's left of the gears look like knife edges. Had they furnished a softer gear for the camshaft, like ductile iron I don't think there would have been a problem. In hindsight, it seems to me like ATR should have furnished a compatable gear for the cam position sensor. No flames intended, but I have not heard back from ATR.
Jay J

 

[badboy86gn2]

Dam Jay

im gussing we share to same luck in life

well im glad you figured it out and i hope you dont have to go thru the motor

thats SH#TY atr hasnt got back to you

Johnny

Well let me know if you need any help with it

 

[750H.P.V6]

Jay,

I'm not sure what distributor drive gear ATR furnishes with their kit but we have always used the OEM gear which is iron. I know they are getting sort of hard to come by since there aren't a lot of odd fire engines anymore. I think TA performance has some. It's the same gear for the 350 cu in Buick V8.

Neal

 

[Rickracer]

If the drive gear on the cam is billet...

...the driven gear on the distributor must be bronze or something compatible, or what you've experienced will happen. ATR should have made note of that in their installation/spec sheet.

 

[norbs]

The stock gears lasts, its not bronze, what gives?

 

[Rickracer]

The stock gear lasts with an iron camshaft

With a billet cam, unless they have an iron gear pressed on instead of cutting the teeth right into the cam, it, they will wipe out an iron distributor gear in a matter of hours.

 

[750H.P.V6]

Rick,

You are correct in your statement. The distributor drive gear isn't integral to the cam itself. It is a seperate piece that slides onto a woodruf key on the nose of the cam. The stock OEM odd fire distributor drive gear is iron as is driven gear on the cam sensor.

Neal

 

[Rickracer]

I'm a SBC and BBC Chevy guy from way back

Dese little hair dryer motahs are kinda new to me, but I'm learning fast.

 

[getchasum]

Let me get this straight

I'm getting ready to install ATR's (Crane) Roller in my new build, also. I sure don't want any failures. So the reconmendations are; to install the bronze gear from TA Performance, Correct?

Also the cam kit came with a stock looking style spring retainer to hold the cam in place. Those that have installed the ATR kit, did you use the set up that came with it or did you use something else to keep the cam in place? Details on a retainer set up are very welcomed.

 

[Nick Micale]

Re: The stock gear lasts with an iron camshaft

Originally posted by Rickracer
With a billet cam, unless they have an iron gear pressed on instead of cutting the teeth right into the cam, it, they will wipe out an iron distributor gear in a matter of hours.

Rick, I do not know where you got your information about these gears not being compatibile?

Buick has used this removable gear for MANY years in V-6 and V-8 motors, and I have never seen this type of failure.

Done many ATR, PTE, Weber and other billet cams in turbo motors and still never had this happen? Something is either wrong in the installation or machining of the cam? The slide-on gear for the dist./cam sensor drive is probably not iron but steel. Never seen a bronze one and would not use it if available.

The ATR roller cam set-up has been around for many years, and all the users I know have had nothing but excellent comments about them, even with driving lots of miles.

 

[JCotton]

Gotta agree with Nick on this one, I would be checking alignment of the cam gear to the crank gear. Before the Comp Cam roller came out, we used the ATR kit, had 0ne gear wearing issue. Since the cam gear is asembled by the end user I would be looking there very carefully, get a stock cam blank and check some measurements. Also check the oil pump gears have proper end clearance into the cover. On one motor job, the cam gear was badly worn after only a short while of running, maybe couple hundred miles. I don't recall exactly what we found other than we replaced the oil pump and timing cover and cam sensor. That was 3 years ago, car is still running strong.