noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

• silverblueBP
• Gigantopithecus
• AzPete
• JAYS70
• Kats66Pny
• 66benchcoupe
• Ponyman66
• 68EFIvert
• janschutz
• KBMWRS
• blue65coupe
• cmayna
• 6t6red
• AtlantaSteve

[GT350]

below is  a vid of my actual car with 351w fitted with a geardrive,what are the pros and cons of having this noisy set up in car ?

http://www.youtube.com/user/UKMILITANTZ#p/a/u/1/b0Sw1yMROpg

[Fast68back]

Ask Jeremy.... 

[70_Fastback]

Con #1:

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

Con #2:

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

Con #3:

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

Con #4:

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

Pro #1 (for her, not me):

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

Any questions?

[70_Fastback]

Here was my gear drive:

exhaust fin

Went back with the same cam again after the breakage.

[66gt350]

I was running one in the 351W I used down at the track, and was turning in 12.5's in the quarter...I was shifting at around 7500 rpms.  I never had any problem with it, but I did bust a skirt off a piston, but that's a whole 'nother story.  IIRC, the one that I have is an Edelbrock.  I was noisy.  I couldn't sneak up on anyone with it.

Jeremy...what in the world were you doing to break one?  They're meant to take abuse and keep the timing exact, and not stretch like a chain.  I hate to ask, but are you sure that you had it installed properly?  I had to do some grinding on the inside of my TC cover to get it to fit correctly.

[tarafied1]

Jeremy...what in the world were you doing to break one? 

he was blowing the doors off a PT Cruiser!!! you should have been there!

[silverblueBP]

IIRC, he was on a slow leisurely cruise to get ice cream at the last CornFeed.

How ghey is that?

[tarafied1]

okay, ya got me. But my version sounds better!

[70_Fastback]

Jeremy...what in the world were you doing to break one?  They're meant to take abuse and keep the timing exact, and not stretch like a chain.  I hate to ask, but are you sure that you had it installed properly?  I had to do some grinding on the inside of my TC cover to get it to fit correctly.

As Mark stated... We were on a highway cruise to Baskin Robins to get 1 percentage of the 31 flavors.  And while cruising at highway speed the car just up and shut off.  No jerks, bangs, pops or anything.  I thought I had maybe ran out of gas and that my gas guage was not working.  I coasted it to the side of the road and tried restarting.  The engine whirled over WAY to easy.

I would ascertain that it was installed correctly.  I clearanged the timing chain cover as you did to clear the gear drive.  The gear drive was the Edelbrock Accu-Drive Gear Drive.  I called Edelbrock to complain, etc - and they actually told me they don't "recommend" those drives for SBF engines.  But they are great for Chevys...  go figure.  They also told me the gear drives are manufactured by Cloyes.

This appears to be what started the failuer; a broken snap ring that retained the dogbone idler gear:

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

Once that was broke, the idler just started to "Walk" apart in my opinion, thus losing alignment and letting it start shredding teeth.

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

[twinturbo]

I installed on on my engine Oh Shart!

noisy gear drive any advice pros and cons

{Global Moderator Comment}

Try to limit profanity to the password boards Chuck - thanks.

[66gt350]

...and they actually told me they don't "recommend" those drives for SBF engines. 

WTF...Then why the  do they put their name on them and sell them!!  I'm glad that I didn't install it on my 5.0 motor, when I busted the piston skirt and yanked out the 351W...

[70_Fastback]

I don't know.  I loved the gear drive whine. 

But once bitten, twic shy...   

[buckeyedemon]

i have read repeatedly that gear drives have only one plus (noise if you like that) and everything else about them is bad.  the main bad thing about gear drives is the transfer of harmonics to the valvetrain. 

i have no personal experience, just what i've read.