roller cam, torrington bearing ,and cam button

So im building a 512 stroker and decided to go with a roller cam seeing as nobody seems to be able to make a hydraulic flat tappet cam last anymore. What a fringin night mare. I knew very little about roller cams and what was involved in making one work. what is with this stupid cam button? i got one from 440 source and it was way too long. so we took 100 thou off of it. not sure if it was too much or not yet. Then i bolt the timing chain on with arp bolts and the bolts hit the cover! So we took the washers off and it seems to clear now. we discovered the difference is the one with the torrington bearing sticks out farther....[censored]. anyone else run into this problem? this is supposed to be the way to go? been nothing but a nightmare trying to figure this out. anyone run into this before and how did you deal with it? like i said this roller cam stuff is all new to me.

more pics of what im dealing with

on mine I had to grind down the head of bolts with no washers & use a nylon button & grind it down to fit, also the bolts had to be regular hex head bolts

ok thanks.....this just makes no sense to me at all. everything ive read says everyone had to grind down or turn down the button....i mean wth kind of nonsense is that! how did you figure out you were at the right size on the button?

I think I found my hand twin.
I used the nylon button and allen head cam gear bolts, and then I had to clearance the button in three spots for the bolt heads.The first set of bolts I bought for the cam gear stuck out too far like yours. The thrust clearance was a bit more work, hard to find a spec on timing cover gasket compression to do it one touch out of the box

I used clay on the button to check fit but haing it hit the cover with no gasket on may work then use the gasket.

im relieved to know its not just me thats having this issue. In this day and age this is the best they can come up with?.....come on!

I've been making billet timing chain covers and matching cam buttons for 20 years to solve this problem.

https://arengineering.com/

oh really?
so if i buy you stuff this will solve my issues?

I seldom get one of the bearing thrust buttons to fit a mopar. I usually just use aluminum bar stock, and turn one myself in the lathe, and I use button head allen bolts, I don't think the heads of the bolts will clear the cover in your pictures. If everything is good with the valve train, there is not a lot of force against the cam button anyway. I have also used the white nylon cam buttons as well, and usually even those have to be trimmed.

I thought I was the only 1 to use button head bolts on the cam.I just file the outside edge of the head by .030" all the way around and no problem with the button clearence.

I just went through this last week so it's fresh in my mind. I just used the cheap Comp cams plastic one and notched in 3 places for the bolts with a small sanding drum in a Dremel. I had the same issue with the ARP bolts touching the cover so I installed a thicker gasket from Superformance. Greg makes the timing cover gaskets in different thicknesses. I put my timing cover on and it just touches the button. So now I'm happy for an easy fix

Gus

i will ditto that, im in the same boat.

you too huh? very frustrating. Are you on fb?

I use button head bolts as well and have no problems with clearance. I use a roller cam button like yours but actually have to shim it out to get the endplay. down. I'm using a cast cover that someone produced a number of years ago. Awesome piece but they seem to have only made a limited run.

What's up on showing two different cam gears
On the three bolt cam gear is there a spacer mounted on the front between the bolts and the gear?
I have 5 or 6 sets of Cloyes 3 bolt timing sets that have the wrong 3 bolt cam gear for BB Mopars
I'll try and remember to take some pictures of them tomorrow in the day light and add them on here

I can remember going through all this too, I ended up grinding the 3 hex bolt heads and using a nylon button on a stock type (chrome) timing cover, as others have done. I always worried when I changed timing cover gaskets as some are thicker or thinner than the original set up one but it never seemed to cause any issue. I used an old stock timing cover with a hole in the appropriate place and a dial gauge to measure the play, this was a long long time ago and I can't remember the figure we were shooting for.
If you go to a Jesel belt drive you can set up the play / clearance much more accurately as they are supplied with a selection of shims IIRC. They are expensive but worth it in my opinion.

The only issue is you thinking it's supposed to be a drop in, cam buttons have to be fit to to the parts you have.

Did you use a gasket when doing your fit tests?

You also might want to add a spacer behind the water pump to firm up the cover because it's going to flex.

Andy F's cover setup is a nice piece but you are still going to have to fit it, which will be easier with his stuff.

Comp cams nylon thrust button is easy to carve to the right size and just takes a few minutes.

The current one has been in my engine for over 6 years.

I used arp hardware and didn't have any issues with hitting the cover.

Typically the only fitting required with my cover and button is selecting the correct timing cover gasket. Superformance used to make several different gaskets so I kept a selection of each on hand. Only takes a few minutes to mock it up, measure the end play and then select the correct gasket to get the end play in the correct range. We build engines all the time with that setup.

just to show the difference betwee the two and to show why the cam blots are hitting cover. sproket hangs out farther with torrinton bearing on the back of it,

If you have the correct cam gear designed and built for the Torrington thrust bearing, there should be no interference with it and the bolts under a stock cover

I didn't realize it was that easy , I need to look into that and if it will fly with F.A.S.T. rules for stock APPEARANCE