SBF distributor/cam gear failure

After leaving BG last week and heading to Biloxi for Cruising the Coast Tuesday night my trusty bucket left me stranded on the side of the road. After a bit of troubleshooting I noticed the distributor was not turning the correct amount per crank revolution. After a quick tear down I found the cam gear wore right off on one side and the distributor gear with damage as well. Looking at the damage I would say it looks like a miss-match between the gear harness for the camshaft. Searching both MSD and Comp Cams for tech I found a good video here.

The cam is a comp hyd. roller. After watching the video it looks like the cam is a ductile iron to me. The gear looks like a hardened gear (smooth not cast) which according to the video is correct.

This is in my 382 Bennett build windsor. It just rolled over 2000 miles.

The dist. is a MSD 85805 found here.
The gear is installed at the correct height as found here.

The only thing I can see is that I am wrong about which cam I have so I thought I would post a couple pics here before I call comp in the morning. I already talked to someone about a new cam but I just want to make sure and identify the problem so it doesn't happen again.

thanks,
Jason

Ouch !
I feel your pain Jason.

Last year I put a duraspark dizzy with a cast gear into one of my cars with a hyd. roller cam just so I could drive it home.
Stupid me, I decided to drive thru the Taco Bell drive thru and the engine idled @ 550 rpm for over 10 minutes.
I suppose there was not enough oil splashing up on the dizzy gear @ 550 rpm tho.

Almost made it home but got within 1/3 mile and the engine died.
Come to find out the cast gear wore so fast against that steel cam gear that the dizzy stopped turning.

I have yet to find any metal shavings in that engine, even after draining the oil and changed the filter.

Man Jason, that looks bad for 2000 miles!! Does the engine builder have any thoughts?

Bill

PS: Alan, hopefully the filings aren't being kept safely in the bearings!!

Bill that is the problem with cross breeding parts in my opinion. The dist gear needs to be softer then the cam gear. The cam I have is a comp cams cast iron roller. Comp recommends either a brass or composite gear or MSD has a treated gear as well (melonite coated). Looking at my damage I would say that my dist gear is obviously too hard and my gear looks nothing like the melonite gears that MSD has. It's a moot point now anyways. I ordered a new comp cam and comp cam composite gear at the same time. I sent some pics to Bennett last week just to see what they had to say but I am not expecting any kind of warranty or anything. I was more looking for input being that I wouldn't expect a simple mistake like that from a place like Bennett Racing.

jasonf wrote:Bill that is the problem with cross breeding parts in my opinion. The dist gear needs to be softer then the cam gear. The cam I have is a comp cams cast iron roller. Comp recommends either a brass or composite gear or MSD has a treated gear as well (melonite coated). Looking at my damage I would say that my dist gear is obviously too hard and my gear looks nothing like the melonite gears that MSD has. It's a moot point now anyways. I ordered a new comp cam and comp cam composite gear at the same time. I sent some pics to Bennett last week just to see what they had to say but I am not expecting any kind of warranty or anything. I was more looking for input being that I wouldn't expect a simple mistake like that from a place like Bennett Racing.

Makes sense Jason, just sucks it happened on your cruise and not just a quick run to the store for a case of Canadian eh???

Planning on any upgrades in the process?

Bill

Bill just a smidge more duration and moved the lobe separation 2* closer. Up until it quit I have never touched a thing on the car since we bought it and Lisa keeps telling me to leave it alone so I don't screw it up. lol