Further diving into my motor today to fix a lifter issue and thought I should ask regarding the wear on this bronze gear. Car has a Comp hydraulic roller setup with about 3k street miles and a few 1/4 passes.

Is this amount of play acceptable? Thanks.

Its trash.. get a new one

That would be the worst I've seen. The teeth must be on the verge of breaking.

Uuuhh...... yeh.
That’s toast.

In fact it was toast when it had 1/2 that much wear.

Might want to look into the melonized steel gear.

High volume or high pressure oil pump?

To the best of my knowledge a "hydraulic" roller cam does NOT use a bronze gear - PERIOD. ONLY solid roller "billet" cams require a bronze gear.

ALL roller cams for a BB Mopar are billet.

That is what I used to think........................

Besides, the bronze gear is suitable to be used with any cam core material.
There just isn’t any upside to doing so on cast cores, since they don’t last as long, and they’re expensive....... so why would you?

So what is the solution?

Well high volume oil pumps cause wear, not setting your distributor thrust causes wear, not setting you cam thrust causes wear, tight cam bearings cause wear, and a few others. They were also some very low quality bronze gears on some of the drives.

As I already mentioned....... the melonized steel gear.

You just have to have a combo where a std pressure/std volume oil pump will work for you.

How much cam endplay ? What kind of button are you using? I have a new gear I found in my trailer that I had as a spare $25 and I'll ship it to you. I was going to list it here in the next week or so.

I agree. This seems to be true. I have a roller cam in my street car that i inspected at about 2500 street miles and the wear was very insignificant. It has a Std volume oil pump.

Wow, that gear is really worn. I've never seen one worn down that far. If that happened after only 3000 miles then you'll need to find another solution. The gear that Hughes Engines sells might solve the problem for you.

I agree, it's way past toast, don't even crank the engine again or you'll be looking for the broken teeth.

With that much play your piston-to-valve clearance isn't how you set it up - take a look for marks.

I've heard cryo treatment helps extend gear life, but no actual tests TIKO.

No matter how wet it looks with the cover off, believe me more oil can't hurt. Many older engines have directed oil (my 1958 Chevy 235 L6 stovebolt has a spray nozzle), or at least a drool hole above the cam to insure they're wet enough. Is there something like this for your engine?

Here is a pic of my circa-1995 bronze gear.
This was bought as just the gear, and I pressed it onto a used stock shaft.

No street miles....... but was run for two dyno sessions and about 250 1/4 mile passes over the course of 3 seasons.

Oil pump drive gear .........vs........ valve to piston clearance?

You are correct, it is a billet steel core. I knew these things were sacrificial, but didn't expect it to be toast this soon. It actually cut me pulling it out.

Motor has a standard Melling pump, but I run Brad Penn 20w50. It'll have over 70lbs of pressure until warm and settle down to 45lbs.

I'll call Comp Cams tomorrow regarding the melonized gear. Will change the oil to a thinner weight before I start it up again too.

I don’t know if Comp carries that gear or not.

Crane did at one time, don’t know if they still do.

Hughes has them.

Is this the one you and Andy are referring to?

http://www.hughesengines.com/Index/products.php?browse=search&search=gear&partid=28107

I really appreciate the time answering my noob questions. Thank you.