Gear or chain drive for Blown Alky BB Chevy?

Hi all,

whats the recommendation for a blown Alky BB Chevy for driving the cam? I dont want to go to a belt drive due to the high cost so am looking at either roller chain or a gear drive. Whats the preference (chain, single gear, double gear) and manufacturer that you guys would recommend. Thanks, Graham

 

RCD, Donovan or Milodon gear drives

 

I have a Ford motor but its blown alcohol and when I was researching the same topic I was told that a gear drive is the way to go. The Milodon 3 gear style specifically with a double keyed crank gear. Chris

 

donovan makes a nice piece
http://www.donovanengineering.com/GearDrives/BigBlockGearDrive.html

 

I too run a BBC you do not want to run a chain.My choice is a milodon gear/front cover set up (to mount the fuel pump)read the instructions and you will be fine.good luck

 

I have a Milodon on one and a Keith Black on the other--both BBC, 14-71 and I also use the Pioneer front mag drive. The Pioneer works well with both gear drives. JW

 

I have two blown bbc's. Smaller one runs a Milodon and the bigger motor has a Diamond billet front mag drive and a very stout Summers Bros gear drive, both work great and show little to no signs of wear, especially the Summers Brothers piece.

Steve

PS. The diamond mag drive is very solid but the radius on the bottom did not match the oil pan. We had to customize the pan to fit, cost us a race weekend. Also the Summers Bros. gear drive makes you drill and tap the front main caps but the gears are big and strong.

 

On a Ford, Make sure there are 2 dowels in the cam also.

Dale

 

if u do not like the cost of a belt drive you sure want like the price of a good gear drive rcd is almost a grand BUT do not use 1 of them cheap 200.00 dollat or 99.99 drives, just my 2c

 

Gears or chain

Hi Graham,
what have you been using till this point and is there any large advantage in changing ?
We used a good quality chain and had no problems. Changed the chain after two seasons to be on the save side though it was still tight with zero slack each time. I can see that a gear drive is easier if the engine is regularly torn down or cam timing changed often but for our style of racing I dont see large gains per dollar spent
Cheers
Jim

 

Hi Jim, I was hoping no one would ask me that as I am running a cheap RCD (I think) version which cost about US$150 3 years ago !! We dont do a lot of meetings and are not stressing things too much as its very much a budget set up. Thanks again for the feedback and advise. Cheers Graham

 

We've prefer to run the Donovan gear drive and have 4 engines with them in. We have also run several Pete Jackson setups over the years and never had reliability issues with them. We like the Donovan better because of the accessibility to the cam without taking the pan off. I have some Pete Jacksons I would sell if you are interested, they are the ones with floating dual idler gears.