Parts availability for cam degreeing

FYI for those that plan to file gears. I measured a cam gear last night and put it in CAD this morning at work and then did a 1 degree rotation. You need to remove .012" of material to advance or retard the cam 1 degree on the secondary sprocket. And remember that 1 cam degree is 2 crank degrees (which is what you're measuring at the degree wheel). So, file away .006" on a secondary gear to move the cam 1 crank degree.

I am picking up a freshly machined Teksid block along with my balanced rotating assembly from the machine shop tonight. I plan to do assembly and degree it next week. I'll report back to confirm this works as I have it written.

Please do. That would be very helpful.

What all material do you guys use for shims anyway? Old woodruff keys or just random scrap or what?

You can use feeler gauge stock for shimming, or just buy a feeler gauge set for cheap and use tin snips to cut them into the proper size needed to shim the gears.

Ah ok that makes a lot of sense and isn't like stuffing some random metal in there. What do you file the gears with? Just a good little hand file I'm assuming?

File or dremel, depends on your patience I guess.

97snakebite said:

Here's the reasonView attachment 1533226

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So I ordered the TFS crank sprockets before you posted your failure. They showed up today and they have a Cloyes PN on them. "S-793-9 MADE IN USA". They are a nice tight fit on the crank. The stock pieces have multiple degrees of slop.

Did yours have the Cloyes PN? It seems so odd for this part to fail. It's the same basic design on any adjustable chain set. Like every push rod timing set I've ever touched had a crank sprocket like this and those often run big spring rates. Maybe the failure had to do with the inertia of four cams? I'm just guessing.

Editing this for one more thought. If the balancer bolt is properly torqued, the crank gears should be clamped in place between a step in the crank and the balancer. Your failure should never happen. Any chance the balancer bolt came loose?

After more researching and reading the TFS instructions, I think I understand the issue. The crank keyway is stepped in the area of the aft gear. In other words, the groove in the crank does not go all the way back to the back face of the aft gear. There is a step in the keyway and the aft gear engages with more of the step than it does the solid key.

The step is a wet noodle. It can't support the gear load. So the gear is only being fixed by a key half its length. This I think is why they fail. TFS instructions recommend machining the keyway farther back and installing a longer hardened keyway to eliminate the step. Since my crank was already at a machine shop for balancing, this is the route I'm going to take.

You can pin the gears together once you set timing, but with the infinite cam timing possibilities I would just stick to filing and shimming the secondary gears.

I bought a cheap feeler gauge set and a set of diamond files from harbor freight when I degreed my cams. Used the stock gear type with no integral key way. Took a little longer but it worked great. Also used ARP cam bolts, passenger side tensioner fix, and upgraded guide dowels.

Those adjustable crank sprockets need to be pinned together after the timing gets set.

They have the same exact problem the stock gears do, my stockers failed the same exact way. Ford revised the gear to a 1 piece unit instead of 2.

Pinning should prevent a failure like that.

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1996MysticSnake said:

Those adjustable crank sprockets need to be pinned together after the timing gets set.

They have the same exact problem the stock gears do, my stockers failed the same exact way. Ford revised the gear to a 1 piece unit instead of 2.

Pinning should prevent a failure like that.

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So you failed the stock gears? Did the aft gear or forward gear fail? Stock keyway? Stock balancer bolt? Just trying to gather info here to understand this failure mode. Thanks.

A couple updates for this thread. For filing the secondary gears, the amount to file that I posted earlier is confirmed. I needed to moved the intake 4 degrees, so I filed .024" (.006 x 4) off the sprocket key and sure enough that moved my ICL by 4 degrees.

For hand filing, I found that the cheap diamond abrasive small files from harbor freight worked pretty nice.

Finally, regarding the TFS gears, TFS recommends having the crank keyway modified so the keyway extends under that aft gear (the factory keyway is a stepped key and provides minimal support for the aft gear. TFS does not recommend pinning or welding. Since my engine was apart I had the shop cut the keyway. The charge was $80.

Hope all this helps someone.

Rich

Mustang GT / COBRA 96 + MMR Adjustable Crankshaft gears 4.6 5.4 [400099] - $149.99 : Modular Motorsports, Home of the Worlds Fastest Modular Engines

Mustang GT / COBRA 96 + MMR Adjustable Crankshaft gears 4.6 5.4

honestly didn't check all the prior posts...so that is my weak apology for bringing this thread back..
Did anyone already mention these??

surprised MMR didn't speak up...

That is the same sprocket set (S-793-9 MADE IN USA) that Trick Flow sells for half the money, which is the set I used. I believe it is manufacturer by Cloyes.

Typical MMR price mark up and marketing fluff right there.

RJCarp2 said:

That is the same sprocket set (S-793-9 MADE IN USA) that Trick Flow sells for half the money, which is the set I used. I believe it is manufacturer by Cloyes.

Typical MMR price mark up and marketing fluff right there.

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How’s the setup working? We’re you able to get the cams dialed in? I’m in the process of building an engine and started gathering the parts to degree my cams but like you, I ran into that issue of not having the parts available anymore.

It is working great. See link below for the results I posted.
https://www.svtperformance.com/threads/airflow-results-for-degreed-cams.1170978/

I was able to get my hands on a one piece crank gear. That was probably 15 years ago and it came from Australia.
I have the older ModCamPonents adjustable gears, might install them at some point