Club Cobra - Comp Cams Bad Tech Support Blew my Engine

I have an early 70's 351w block. I wanted a hyd. roller cam for it and my engine builder recommended and insalled a "Retro Fit" hyd. roller cam form Comp Cams. He aslo specified the MSD distributor to install in the engine. After i picked up the long block, I went to install the distributor. It had a warning tag on the drive gear saying that the gear was made of cast iron and to call the Cam maker to make sure it was compatable with the cam. So like a good consumer, I called Comp Cams tech support to ask if the cast iron gear was compatable with the cam model I had. I was told no it wasn not and needed to be changed to a steel gear. So I had to order a steel gear for $80 and pay another $35 to have it installed on the distributor. The rest of the story you know. My new distributor drive gear shreaded the camshaft gear in 150 miles pushing metal throughout the entire engine. This meant an entire tear down and rebuild. When I called the engine builder to tell him about the cam shreading, he asked if the distributor gear was also damaged and it was not. It looked like new. So he asked if I changed the gear from the one that came on the distributor. I told him yes and why. He said they were absolutely incorrect as "Retro Fit" roller cams for early blocks use a cast iron or bronze gear. He said he specified the model of distributor because it already had the proper gear on it and that i should never have changed it therby voiding the warranty on the engine build. I wrote and called Comp Cams and they admit they gave me the advice to change the gear. They still give this advice. They insist that a steel gear is the proper one, but I have gotten many replies of others with the same story as mine and blown engines due to this incorrect information. I went back and forth with the management of Comp Cams bassically getting a " Well that is our opinion and your engine builder is wrong. So I offered this test. If we rebuilt the engine with exactly the same parts by the same person with the only difference being the distributor drive gear being changed to a cast iron gear to see if it would shread the cam again. We agreed that if the engine made it 1000 miles that would be a fair test. It is now at 1000 miles and Comp Cams answer after eight months is they will send me a new camshaft if i return the old one. Now eight months after i had already proved it was their bad tech support and after the engine has been back together for eight months is a bit absurd to offer me no recompense on the rebuild and a part I have no use for. We pulled the distributor at 450 miles and the cam is perfect and the distributor gear is also perfect, so I think I have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the steel gear was NOT compatable with their Retro Fit Cam. Yet they still continue to give out this advice to customers costing many others thousands of dollars and will not even take the time to do some testing to check out the issue. This to me shows a complete lack of consience and shows no interest in customer satisfaction. If any of you want any further information, feel free to e-mail me at mikeykap@comcast.net. If I was the only one this has happened to, I would not be as angry and upset, but this has happened to many many people and will continue to happen until someone stops Comp cams from giving out this incorrect information. Since the only way to get a corporation to listen these days is a lawsuit, this is the reason I suggested it. I doubt my asking for a boycott would afect them much, but a class action lawsuit, hopefully will stop them from continuing to give out this bad advice. It seems this issue only applies to their "Retro Fit" Hyd. Roller cams. Other roller cams do in fact use a steel gear. Well that is the summery of the story. I hope that clarifies that it was not the distributor gear that came apart, but the gear on the camshaft itself. As a side not, if i had not read the instructions and just installed the distributor as it was, i would not have had this problem.

Mike