OK, I've changed my mind again! Big Surprise!!!
I've decided on the 330HP H.O. Crate from GM and was wondering if I need to change the distributor gear??

from the Sallee website:

"Distributor P/N 93440806 or melonized distributor gear P/N 10456413 must be used on this crate engine because of the steel camshaft."


Thanks, Les

 

AGVI you're doing the same thing I did. I started out sure I was going to get the LM1, then I ordered the 290 HP from Sallee. After they screwed around a few weeks not shipping it out I changed my mind again and went with the 350 H.O. from Jegs . I figured with the better heads and cam to just pay up now and be done with it. The only problem I had with Jegs was one of the first engine's valve covers was smashed in. Eventually they picked it up and sent me a different one. My advice is to examine it closely before the truck leaves and you can save yourself some aggravation by just refusing it if there's anything wrong.
Yes you do need the "melonized" gear. I ordered my from GMPartsdirect.com. You could maybe get one from your local dealer too. Part # is 10456413. Edelbrock calls for an intake gasket with the silicone or rubber rings. I got this spendy item at my GM dealer. I can dig up the full parts list for what I used and PM it to you. Good luck.

 

what no 440 hp 383 stroker?????????

 

No, I think I'll be happy with 330hp...for now!

Cam swap in the future should push me over 400HP/Torque.

 

My 350 has the retro Hyd rol cam. I will be replacing the 74 tach w/mech drive w/HEI. Will I have to change dist drive gear? TIA

Rick

 

All he had to do was call Comp Cams.....would've saved me two breakdowns and $3K total....

Billet steel cams, like nearly all solid roller and many older or even some current hydraulic roller cams require either a bronze gear or the newfangled carbon thingy from Comp Cams and cannot use a melonized (regular GM or MSD cast iron gear). I don't even know what uses a steel distributor gear or where they come from....

However, except that you can use the $120 weird thing from CompCams on anything, you also CANNOT use a bronze gear on a cast geared or soft cored cam.

In the first case the cam gear will be destroyed; in the latter the distributor gear. In either case, the bronze gears wear much more quickly than the "melonized" cast iron gears.

Just call the cam manufacturer on whichever one you choose. They will make a good recommendation.

 

I have a Comp Cams Hyd Rol. What type do they need?

Rick

 

AGVI, thats a great engine...idles smooth, pulls nice, and sounds awesome when you get on it. I've helped my father install one in his car, and my neighbor install one in his. Yes, we got the melonized distributor gear for both engines. It was recommended so thats what we went with. Probably wouldn't hurt to just use the stock gear on a HEI, but if GMPP recommends it, i'd go with it.

 

...granted I'd have to take stupid classes....

But, mine is a Magnum CS 286H-R10 with 286/286 (230/230 - or 234/234 @ 0.05"+ on all info other than the spec sheet) duration with .560/.560 lift. 110 lobe separation recommended 106 deg centerline. P/N 12-450-8. It is one of CC's hyd rollers with a cast iron drive gear and is not of billet steel construction.

*It absolutely does NOT use a bronze gear!*

It uses the standard "melonized" (or "mellanized", I'm sure of neither the spelling nor the property) cast iron type gear as comes on an MSD ProBillet or is standard for GM issued hydraulic roller cams. (Comp cams can also supply one of these.)

It can also use the new super-duper cam gear CompCams is hawking at about $135. This gear is like sintered or powdered metal with some sort of imbedded carbon or some such. The CompCams dude said this was neither necessary nor advisable due to the cost.

Please...*please*....*PLEASE!* call them directly with your exact cam info! Their info is www.compcams.com Cam help line is (800)999-0853.

When mine ate the WRONGLY CHOSEN bronze gear off mine in less than 2,000 miles, I was actually lucky the crossfire that caused didn't hurt my all forged engine. What it did was blow a chuck of head gasket out between #3&5 and into the intake charge, which in turn got sucked into #1 and damaged it and that piston top slightly. (It also nuked the carb power valve of course - they are only designed to handle a simple backfire, not one powered by main cylinder pressure.)

Of course it also sent bronze parts all through the oiling system - or tried to. Here "serendipity raised its ugly head." To get around not having enough room from the header for an oil filter on top of my sandwich adapter for my oil cooler, I reluctantly went with a remote filter arrangement (which does lower your oil pressure, but only about 15-20 psi off of 60-70.) The neat thing about that is ALL the oil goes from the pump to the filter and through the cooler first, rather than to the bearings - the worse possible setup. Thus the filter caught all the particles. Theories ranged from "tear the engine down and vat it" to get the bronze particles to "don't worry about it - the small bronze bits are too soft to really damage the bearings (especially the hard-to-reach cam bearings) and any larger parts won't get into the tiny clearances between them anyhow." It's been about 1500 miles and I've seen no drop in oil pressure - so I'm getting comfortable I might have escaped that horror.

Back to the real problem I did encounter is this additional damage from the crossfire wasn't very obvious. It ran fine in idle, although no amount of retarding the timing during finding the problem could yield an afterfire. Put any load on it though and it dieselled like it was trying to burn ether. Finally a compression test at the place my idiot builder sent me to found the two cylinders that were leaking into each other.

(The $750 to that guy I expected my idiot engine builder to pick up - foolishly - he actually charged that guy $125 to check out my heads, mill them a few thousandths and hand lap three valves that weren't seating properly! "Pass the vaseline, would you? There's a good chap!")

THIS guy failed to torque the new head gasket properly (only 75 ftlbs instead of 105-110 the ARP L19 studs require,) so, 750 miles later, I encountered 3 superheat events which resulted in $1200 to another, unconnected mechanic, to tear the heads off yet again, have them heavily tested by another machine shop for any hidden cracks or warps (there were none, fortunately - and they confirmed the high flowing mods of the intake and exhaust the idiot builder at least had done decently.)

All in all, I just really cannot recommend taking a gamble on a distributor gear, in case I wasn't real clear on it....

(BTW, aside from these screw ups and the valve cover, distributor and small oil pan leaks, I just found the latest screwup. Mine uses the two part crank pulley - two main and a nested one for the power steering. Well, it seems the idiot didn't understand those nest nice and tightly by aligning two of the larger holes on each, which even have an obvious, but not apparently "idiot proof", set of dimples around these holes. I had to tighten these three bolts and the main harmonic balancer bolt after the first hour, since at the Idiot Engine Builder's Academy, apparently the motto is "finger tight is f'ing good enuf!" (Yeah, don't remind me about the main, rod, and flywheel bolts - just. DON'T! It's been nearly 4,000 miles and it hasn't thrown those or the timing gear yet, so I think the "Action Jackson" staff was in for the bottom end building....)

Well, this massive offset literally cracked up and broke both of those mild steel pulleys. I caught it before they went nuclear and a nice set of March comes in from Summit tomorrow. While I was at it, I changed the supposed "hub" (no balancer was supposed to be used on this engine, since it balanced to a 1/3g on the balancer setup - which I witnessed them doing, including the two places on the crank they had to add some Mallory metal.) Well, they DID use a balancer, one that was over 10 pounds and probably was on General Sherman's private corvette from the looks of the condition. Now it has a nice neutral balanced TCI Rattler.

In other words, I've gone through every imaginable idiot engine builder hell one can probably have on a single engine - some $12K for a mild but apparently resiliant small block that should have been $4500 - but the worse, the absolute WORSE! problems I had came from the WRONG distributor gear!

 

I think I asked before, but who was that anyhow?

 

Can I use this flexplate??

http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerc...61&prmenbr=361

 

Les,
I'm sure you could use it but it looks a little expensive. You shouldn't have to pay more than $70-80 for one at most parts stores. NAPA had one on the shelf for mine. John

 

What are the requirements other than it has to be a 168 tooth?
I don't know what to ask for other than that.

Les