Comp Cams Lies to Better Business Bureau

[Excaliber]

Good call having the dist gear professionally installed, of course a guy CAN install his own gear, but you can also screw it up. Easy to see it's a roller cam from the profile of the lobes, very round and not so pointed like a flat tappet would be. Roller cams run a softer gear, like bronze (or the new plastic). Looks like the engine builder had the right gear the first time. An example of why I trust the engine builder over the cam supplier. Of course, even they make mistakes, it's tough to be 100% correct 100% of the time.

If Comp Cams said the dist gear is what wore out the cam gear, that would be an accurate statement in this case. Neglecting the fact it is THEY who recommended the dist gear of course!

[Silverback51]

A roller cam should have either a steel gear or a bronze gear. A cast gear will wear out in no time.

I have a roller cam in mine and a steel gear on the distributor. No issues with this combo. However I will be changing to a bronze gear when I but in the new distributor.

Is it possible that the steel gear was installed wrong on your distributor? Generally the steel and bronze gears do not have the roll pin hole drilled. If I remember right, the tolerance for locating this to the distributor shaft is .010. That is close and needs to be checked after installation.

[Silverback51]

This is from the 2007 Ford Motorsport catelog.


Roller Tappet Distributor Gear—Machined
from steel and specially hardened to be
compatible with billet-steel roller camshaft.
Do not attempt to use cast iron gears designed
for flat tappet cams.

[Power Surge]

Originally Posted by Silverback51

A roller cam should have either a steel gear or a bronze gear. A cast gear will wear out in no time.

I have a roller cam in mine and a steel gear on the distributor. No issues with this combo. However I will be changing to a bronze gear when I but in the new distributor.

Is it possible that the steel gear was installed wrong on your distributor? Generally the steel and bronze gears do not have the roll pin hole drilled. If I remember right, the tolerance for locating this to the distributor shaft is .010. That is close and needs to be checked after installation.

I went through this same discussion on the last thread. Turns out Mike is right... the came he got IS roller and IS NOT steel. I don't know how they do it, but they are making some of those retro cams in another metal.

[rattlesnakepete]

AC,

I have the same cam you mentioned. Mine was made in either 2005 or 2006. I have been keeping an eye on the cam and distributor gear and so far so good. I have about 1200 miles on it mostly at the track.

How long did yours last until it stripped?

I wonder if I can check the production number on the cam and see if it was from the bad batch?

I am not sure if comp cams would fess up to any of this unless I have a failure.

[AC Cobra]

Originally Posted by rattlesnakepete

AC,

I have the same cam you mentioned. Mine was made in either 2005 or 2006. I have been keeping an eye on the cam and distributor gear and so far so good. I have about 1200 miles on it mostly at the track.

How long did yours last until it stripped?

I wonder if I can check the production number on the cam and see if it was from the bad batch?

I am not sure if comp cams would fess up to any of this unless I have a failure.

The original CompCams 35-426-8 had a serial number of UE0920. If you have anything close I would call and talk to CompCams.

My original cam lasted about 3 years before it failed. I was using a steel gear on the MSD distributor.

[Jamo]

Rick Lake and I have explored the cam/distributor gear issue over the past five years ad nauseum on FEs.

Basic Rule: The distributor gear is always supposed to be the sacrificial lamb. It is always supposed to be of the same, or preferably, softer material than the cam...for obvious reasons.

Cam mfgs didn't always make the same stuff available for every application. There is still a bit of an issue with FEs for solid roller cams because they are only recently starting to press on stronger gears onto the cams. Bronze, or the more recent poly gears, were the only things you could use, though there have been a few (very few) stories of folks getting by with steel gears. I have several bronze gears on the shelf behind me as I type that are either broken, worn down or sharpened to where they could cut a gnat's short hairs lengthwise. I always carried a Buckley Emergency Distributor Gear Kit with me consisting of (1) bronze gear pre-drilled for a Chevy-sized pin, (2) a tube of lube (KY or anal lube might suffice) and (1) handy dandy little gear puller. Used it several times, most notably at 8,000 feet in the Sierras. I switched back to a non-roller flat tappet several years ago.

Keith (KC) discovered better luck using hyd rollers for FEs because they could use steel gears, and has been building big HP with them without the distributor gear problems.

Rick's being the good guy running the poly gear so we get some empirical evidence back on its usage.

What gets me about Mike's problem is that Mfgs have been making the stronger pressed-on cam gear setups for SBC, SBF BBC, 429/460s and Mopars for years (FEs being the basturd child left in the cold for a lengthy period), so the distributor gear-cam matchup should have been a no-brainer for Comp Cams. I cannot imagine anyone ever advising a cast iron gear for any kind of roller (just doesn't make sense to me...but hey...if it works), and any steel matchup better be deadon with the materials used for the cam gear...or they should recommend bronze or the new poly.

Mike, there is a thing called res ipsa loquitor that is used in med mal cases when somebody wakes up after an operation and finds out a sponge has been left in their belly. You sue everyone that was in the operating room and basically throw the burden at the collective group, akin to saying "one of you basturds did this...you figure it out!"

While it may be that the cam gear material was bad...it sounds more likely (and a simplier arguement to make) that the advised matchup for the distributor gear was wrong.

Hope you get some answers (and money). There is simply no reason why this crap can't be standardized and, as suggested, a cam gear can't be provided with each cam based upon the customer's spec of the distributor to be used.