Technical Gear Drive and Blower

Is it alright to run 1 with a blower? Think I seen on here somewhere it's not. Gear drive is a Milidon.

 

Why Not?

 

You probably won't hear it over the blower noise anyway whether its noisy or quiet.

 

I had a PJ noisy one on the bucket and a 671 on the 454 with zoomies and never heard it even once. When I upgraded to the blown 540, I went to a double roller timing chain.

The old gear drives dont seem to much love anymore. That said, I absolutely wouldnt run one on a motor unless it was a blown one. Having that "blower sound" with out a blower, makes you in my not at all humble view, a pretentious git.

But thats only my opinion and Im well known fore being wrong

 

I've had Pete Jackson "noisy" gear drives in two supercharged small blocks for years and never had an issue. Personally, I think the gear drive is just as loud as the blower. Take the belt off your blower, fire up the engine, and you'll see what I mean.

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the milodon fixed idler gear drive is the way to go. follow the set up directions. if you don't have them they are available on milodons site. setting up a gear drive correctly will greatly reduce the noise level. you may not even hear it. the dual idler setups are not recommended. they are loose sloppy units that make a lot of noise. the only difference between the quiet and noise gear drives is how much slop they build into them.

 

Belts and gears make different sounds....

 

I'm not running a blower although I'd like to be able to afford one but my gear drive is a quiet set not the noise one so it runs pretty quiet I love it but I'd love a huffer more lol


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I have had both on different cars. I didn't mind the whine of the blower, but the gear drive was noisey and I hated it!!!!

 

I have had a few customers have gear drives catastrophically fail. I will not install them.

 

I'm not worried about the noise, I was told they are more prone to fail on a blower motor, something about the belt and harmonics of it. I ran a pete jackson years ago on a injected BBC and never had a problem. Didn't mind the noise until I put the engine in a rear engine dragster. First trip up the return road and I thought holy crap until I realized what it was.

 

I ran a gear drive with the blower ,went on a long trip. first thing I did when I got home was remove the gear drive. the noise is way to annoying over the singing of the blower

 

lots of blower motors don't run a damper, that makes sense...

 

Squirrel, don't you have a 427 in your Nova? I have a nice 060 over 454 block, been debating on 468 or 427. I always liked the 427 for RPM's. Had 1 in my 70 chevelle with a 4 spd alot of years ago.

 

Blower belt whine = good noise
Gear drive cam = bad noise

 

yeah, I have a 427. I don't know that it's going to give you much rpm over a properly set up 454, that quarter inch stroke doesn't seem to bother them too much one way or the other. But I built my car to be like 1966, and most guys didn't buy a welded stroker crank at that time.

 

Mike - you're a prime candidate for a 496. Balanced, 7000 rpm is possible. Not like you'd need it with all that torque.

 

I have run a balancer on my blower engine for years. Its a sfi rated balancer.

 

only run a one idler thats fixed but adjustable like mentioned ( milodon) , the loose 2 idlers hunt trying to mesh and I have seen some come apart and then jam ( cheap chevy noisy application) ,
gear drives were the norm on the older engines used in gas motored trucks you never heard them whine ( just the transmissions because of the gear mesh angle ) .

 

years ago I bought a used 396 at the junkyard, it had a factory reverse rotation, helical, gear driven cam. that would be the right way to do gear drive.

 

X2

 

Most (not all) blower guys just run a hub on the crankshaft and no balancer, but that won't bother the gear drive. The harmonic issue with a gear drive is it can transfer harmonics into the camshaft, but in a real world hot rod situation it isn't enough to give a shit about.

If you like the gear drive, run it with or without the blower, you will be fine. Fixed gear are better than the dual idler in my opinion, but there millions of those $149 dual gear drives running around out there.

Good luck, -Abone.

 

Hate to see how loose it would need to be for that to occur. Never heard of that happening before. Installation error or junk drive?

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there is nothing to hold it in place and it will walk back and forth ( inside cover had marks of it rocking back and forth from it pulling/pushing the idlers into /away the lower gear on acceleration , it wasn't a china made one ,
IMO gear lash was way too much to make noise .
but, I have seen others ( more expensive units ) where the covers also had some marks of the dogbones rocking but not as much but the builders also drilled the oil plugs so it got lubed real good .

 

Ran a gear drive in my last Gasser. Over 250 passes at over 8 grand and no wear issues. Milodon and Schaeffer oil.

 

I think I'll stay with a chain. I run a alum cover with the Pete Jackson I had and you could see light marks on the cover. Never caused a problem. I'm going to go with the 454, 060 over. I think I've found a good aftermarket steel crank and rods for it. A friend has a 482 with a bad cyl. I'm going to just run a crank hub for the 454.I'll have everything checked out before I put it together.

 

Its like FAbone says. If you are one of those "Things be getting real up in here types" you probably want a belt or a chain, but if you are just one of those fellas that drives it like you stole it and that thousandth of a second won't make or break you the gear drive is OK.

I am like Jeff and prefer a fixed gear but I have run many dual idler and had no problems with them. The deal is that if you are going to run a fixed gear the best time to decide that is while your block is still empty. I personally prefer a chain, but it is a personal preference. The gear drive probably won't hurt you.

 

If Pete Robinson could get this to work on his Top Fuel 427 Cammer, I think you should be fine with a simple Milodon timing set.....

 

LOL lots of indy cars were gear drive too.

 

And Detroit 2-Stroke Diesels, where I think most of these blowers originated from anyways.