Noisy Timing Gear Drive

[61_FL_Apache]

Anyone running one of these in your small block?

[jchav62]

I was at one time, but it broke on me...went back to a double roller.

It's one of those things thats cool at first but it don't take long to wear on you.

[blackedoutharley]

I have a standard Pete Jackson in my truck and have about 125K on it. I don't really hear the noise in the truck (the exhaust and stereo drown it out, LOL).

If you're thinking of running one it is good to know that while they provide stable timing, as a result of no chain, they do transmit any harmonics to the valve train. Additionally Comp Cams says they take about 20-25 hp to drive in a small block.

The secret to keeping them alive is constant oil flow.

[lakeroadster]

I put a Pete Jackson noisey one on a '72 Nova I restored about 10 years ago. Never had any problems... I liked it. My 80+ year old grandfather kept telling me my power steering pump was going out... he failed to understand the noisey gear drive concept.

[fryer1979]

Had a Cloyes noisy gear drive in the 350 in my Camaro. Sounded cool for a little while, but soon began to bother me. I wound up taking it out, could not hear what was going on with the engine (let alone anything else). Been using an Edelbrock double roller chain ever since, and have no regrets.

[markeb01]

When I built my 46 Ford back in the early 80’s, I wanted a Pete Jackson gear drive, but my engine builder convinced me to buy a Summers Brothers instead.



It was an engineering masterpiece however it made very little noise, and required moving all the accessory brackets ¼” forward to accommodate the mounting plate. This created alignment problems that were tedious to deal with. It could be made to scream by closing up the idler clearance, but that risked burning up the gears and bearings. Since this was my daily driver I couldn’t afford to damage the engine to make it louder. Being too quiet (for what I wanted) I quickly got bored and replaced it with a Pete Jackson noisy drive. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the PJ install. We put 300,000 miles on the car and the PJ drive was in there for more than half those miles.

When I first built our GMC in 1991 the only upgrade to the 350 Targetmaster was another noisy Pete Jackson drive. In 19 years the engine has logged about 165,000 miles and the gear drive still works perfectly. My wife and I really enjoy the sound. The gear drive, 4 speed, open element air cleaner and mufflers make so much music I haven’t had a radio in 15 years. During the bad winters when I don't get to drive the truck very often I really miss the sound effects. I have a very cool video of how it sounds, but lack the technology needed to convert it to something I can upload.

[61_FL_Apache]

After watching a few youtube videos of these gear drives, I think the noise would get to me after a while. My truck is a DD and that might get old.

Thanks for the input guys!

[jocko]

i had a pete jackson gear drive in a tunnel rammed 327 in a 57 chev. Even with the straight thrush header pipes and incredibly loud sucking sound sticking out of the hood - the pete jackson gear drive still got on my nerves. turned out to be one of those things i heard on another car and thought it was awesome - then when i had to listen to it nonstop, it got old quickly. that was just me - i'm a bit torn, i DO still love to hear it - but I find that i enjoy it much more on someone else's car. believe it or not, the 57 was a driver - so that's part of the reason it got old. if it was not a daily car, i think i'd have enjoyed it more. of course with the tunnel ram, it wasn't a daily driver for long, i went broke buying gas. bottom line - i feel that the little bit of extra timing exactness you may get from a gear drive is offset by the harmonics transmission and the "attention" one tends to get from the local constabulary - a double roller is pretty much good enough for any street engine. on the other hand - if you really LOVE that whine, go for it!

[jocko]

it WAS noisy, but a heckuva lot o fun too... hmm, I think I'm gonna have to go buy another gear drive now. thanks a lot...