[DeTomaso] distributor gear

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/12/12 7:51:48 PM, will.kooiman at gmail.com writes:

> This metallurgy discussion only applies to roller cams, right?
> I've always assumed that I didn't have to worry about the dist gear 
> material with my flat tappet cam (CompCams).
> 
I agree with Dan. Regardless of the cam being run, the only real 'safe' 
setup with a 351-C is to minimize the loads the oil pump applies to the cam 
gear and the one in its mesh on the bottom of the distributor shaft. The 
distributor load is trivial; its all pump load. And there are three failure 
points: the distributor gear pin, the oil pump driveshaft and finally the gear 
teeth themselves. The first two are simple to fix; there is no perfect fix (so 
far) for #3. 
To cloud the mix further, occasionally, an aftermarket cam of any kind will 
get its integral gear cut at the wrong pressure-angle; with such a cam, any 
gear may last only 5 miles. Yes- it's happened. My 2¢- J Deryke