I've been looking at the Hughes "OIL PUMP DRIVE SHAFT W/COATED STEEL GEAR". I really want to run a street hydraulic roller in a 383 but the choice of gear is concerning me. I've done some searches and the choices seem to be brass or coated steel (Melonized). I see Comp offers a composite gear but not for a BB. The comments I've read about the bronze gear seem to be like going to Vegas, you never know how it is going to end until after it's ended. Can't find much on the coated gear. What are your recent experiences with drive gears for street roller camshafts?

I'm going to run the Hughes coated steel gear with my new roller cam. I've found running a well-adjusted collar on the distributor shaft really helped with reducing the wear on my previous bronze gears.

I replaced the bronze gear on my solid roller in my hemi with the Hughs gear and when I pulled it after a year of use to inspect it it and the cam looked new.

The gear is make by crane and installed on a shaft by Hughs. The only problem I had was the shaft was too tight in my bushing but a minute in the drill press and some emery cloth and all was well.

Mike

Crane says not to run their gear on a used cam, FWIW.

Brad I talked to them about it about it and it seemed they were worried about any wear the cam gear might have on it causing it to attack each other. Hughes told me that if all the bronze was totally off the cam it would work as long as the cam didn’t show any wear.

After over a year of street use I haven’t had any wear.

Crane 66970-1 on my Howards hydraulic roller. 2 years and 4,500 miles of street/strip use. I pulled it apart last fall and both the cam gear and distributor gear look new.

They do recommend using only with a standard volume and pressure pump. Not an issue for me.

Thanks to all who responded. Sounds like the coated steel gear is the way to go. I have done some more searching since my post and find that in addition to the standard oil pump, use of synthetic oil is beneficial also.

I have a Lunati hydraulic roller (BTW - unless you keep the rpms really low I don't recommend it). They told me to send the mopar performance gear assembly to comp cams to get nitrided and never look back. That's what I did but don't have enough miles on it to comment how effective it is.