Hello all,

The build of my 1970 455 is coming closer and closer to the end! The plate mount timing gear drive I ordered just arrived today and I figured I should ask others how well gear drives work and also if anybody has had this same gear drive kit that I do. It's made by some company called "C.A.T" and I found the kit on ebay brand new for incredibly cheap. I know all of your professional opinions would be very helpful. In case of failure with this plate mount gear drive kit the engine has a whole timing chain kit also.

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully reply to this thread, -Jimmy

 

Saw that kit when I was doing my build but seemed to cheap and never heard of them so I stuck with the chain...Id like to hear anyones view on it as well.

 

Its Chinese built and noisy as heck check out the CAT products on the internet lots on negative stories. I bought a set of CAT rods and they took a lot of work to get right for use.

I would stick with the double roller chain set up myself quiet and no troubles

 

I was looking for a noisy one so I guess I at least found that part right.... But what potential problems could arise from these timing gears?

 

All that noise you hear is harmonics being sent through your engine.Not good.Whether it's quiet or not,they won't dampen like a chain will.

 

What can result from all of these harmonics being sent through the engine, and over how long will this take to develop in to an immediate attention problem? Sorry about my inexperience with this, this is my first engine build. I decided to go with a gear drive on the basis that my mom has a noisy gear drive on her drag car's 392 stroker, and my dad prefers to work on and more openly trusts timing gear drives.

 

I have an old Pete Jackson gear drive with the two idler gears between the cam and crank gears. It's been in two different engines and is still going strong. I've never had a problem with it at all but I don't know how it would compare to a CAT one. It's a quality piece and after thousands of miles there is virtually no wear at all, just nice shiny teeth. If your CAT one has straight cut gears it will be noisy. Mine sounds like a blower/supercharger. I even had an old timer comment to me one day that my front pump on the transmission was bad, lol.

 

The results I have seen were beaten bearings,a backfire that spit the gear out,and a broken crank,while driving down the highway.All Chevy.

 

The picture below is of my Milodon gear drive that cost me $315 many years ago. My engine was line bored twice which moved the crank closer to the cam and created too much slop in the timing chain. That's why my engine builder recomended the gear drive. I really wasn't after noise. It was kind of a pain to install. Drilling and tapping on the front of engine was required. I even broke a tap in the process. Not good. The gear drive will allow for many cam advance and retard positions. You can not run a mechanical fuel pump with one. I heard so many negative things about the gear drive that I took it off and found a shorter, custom, timing chain, before I ever ran it. The worst story was about a cracked block, caused by the gear drive. You will definately have more friction, creating more heat and resistance. Thus making your engine slower. I would be very leary of the quality of the bearings and gears being used in that $99 dollar gear drive set-up. I would hate to see you ruin a good motor and loose some serious coin to do a rebuild all because of some cheap-a$$ chineese part that probably costs less than a quality timing chain. Note- I can not speak first hand about the quality, reliability, or longjevity of a gear drive unit in an Olds. All I know is, I was not willing to take a chance. If you really like the whine of a gear drive you should burn a CD and crank it up while your cruisin.

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If you are still looking for shorter chains,I use Rollmaster billet chians in my engines.They come in shorter increments for blocks that have been shortened from line-boring.I think the one in the 507 is .004" shorter.There are other billet chains that are made shorter,but are usually not advertised.