When should I replace my distributor gear? The street stroker build is almost 2 years old and has 1900 miles. I have included a picture of the gear compared to a new gear. There is some wear on the teeth and also on the bottom wear it rides on the distributor bushing. Should I be replacing this? How many miles should I expect to get on a new gear. Oil is 15W50 and stock volume high pressure oil pump.

Pic #2

Wear on the teeth is almost unavoidable. You can eliminate the wear on the base if you put a steel shim washer in there. The wear is due to "similar metals" - both being bronze!

I'm assuming your app is one that is supposed to run the bronze gear? does your oil have enough zinc? It does look like the margins at the OD are thinner on the used one. You might put a screwdriver in the slot & see if there's any rotational play just like backlash on a ring/pinion

Do you really need the high pressure pump?
How about a step down in oil-thickness?

All to releave the gear of the high drag that'ss being put on it because of this.

Why do we care about zinc with a roller cam ???

Thanks for all the replies. I have measured the old gear compared to the new gear. Everything measures out to be the same except for the height. The old gear is roughly .007 th shorter due to the wear on the bottom of the gear.

I installed the old gear and if I had to guess there is about 1/16 of gear movement when I use a screw driver to turn the gear back and forth like gear lash. With the new gear there is some very small amounts of movement, but not like the old gear. I tried measuring the gear thickness and I see it wore down about .020th on the teeth surface.

I am running Joe Gibbs high zinc oil 15W40 and not sure why the engine builder used a high pressure stock volume pump. My oil pressure at 50 mph cruise at 185f is 63 psi, and at idle it is around 31 psi at 180f.

This is a 499 stroker build which is driven on the street with a solid street roller cam.

To improve gear life, I'd start with thinner oil to reduce load on the gear. Based on your hot idle oil pressure 10W30 should be plenty.

What about running a composite gear from Crane Cams or Hughes Racing over a bronze gear? Has anyone ran a composite gear on a used cam that was ran with a bronze gear. The cam shows a very small amount of gear pattern.

Looks interesting but clearly says not to install on a used cam.

I'm wondering how it would know its a used cam ?? In the case of a roller cam, there should be ZERO wear on the cam since the bronze gear would be the sacrificial piece. I'd go for it.

Whoa! That gear from Hughes isn't "composite", its a coated steel gear. I'd take their advice about not using it on a used cam. But it would still be nice to know why not!

I'm going to have my next bronze gear cryogenically treated to see how that affects the wear.

Ditto on using thinner oil to reduce the load on the pump and gear.

The Milodon billet pump reportedly takes less power to turn at a given rpm, so I'm running one of those to reduce gear wear too. I have the stock cover on that pump. The shape of the gearator is significantly more pointed than the stock gearator, which is what supposedly allows it to pump the oil more efficiently.

I am going to stick with the bronze gear for now. I am going to replace the oil with 10w30 or 10w40. Should I convert the high pressure pump to standard pressure pump also?

See what you have for psi after the oil change

Okay thanks. What should the oil pressure be when hot?

On a fresh performance street engine I like 20 PSI at hot idle and around 60 hot at speed. 5 psi less on both is likely OK.