I'm running a 87 ford 302 with the old 70's style timming cover, v pulleys, front sump in my 50 shoebox. The motor is a roller block and planning to run a duraspark dizzy off a 77. I know i have to change the gear to a bronze gear because of the cam in the roller block. I bought a gear from NAPA and it turned up as a msd gear. The gear fits so sloppy on the shaft you can wiggle it back and forth. Not good right? So, anyone know if the msd gear is for there own dizzys and not ment for a stock dizzy replacement? I told the parts guy what i was doing.
There are two different shaft o.d.s. You probably have the wrong one. By the way, steel gears are much more durable than bronze in a street motor. You can get them from Summit , among other vendors.
Yep, the MSD gear is for their own dizzys, and is usually .500" on the I.D. You need a steel gear that can be obtained from CJ's Pony Parts that will fit the Ford distributor.
The original 302 Roller motors had a steel dist gear. The bronze will not last very long on the street. You can buy the correct dist with proper gear for approx 50.00 reman. I prefer the MSD 6AL Digital box to go with it, they even make a special connector to hook it up. A direct plug and play. If you were close I have a dist that would work.
So bronze is not the ticket then. I've read a few articles and paging through a ford builders guide they say to use a bronze gear. So i orderd one. I have to agree after looking at the bronze gear it doesn't look like a durable item. So steel it is. Thanks for the info guys. This msd box you speak of. It's for a older duraspark replacement?
I just went though this on my 52 ford F1 using a 1989 roller (low-performance roller) 302 out of a Lincoln town car. A stock distributor that will work gear wise with your cam is a 1985 mustang gt (60 bucks tax and all at autozone) with 5 speed and carb. BUT, Another thing to consider if you are using the oil pump shaft that came with the 87 and that 87 had the TFI style distributor the shaft is longer on the TFI distributor and the other style distributors will only have about 1/4" contact shoved into the different distributor. So you will have to swap out oil pump shafts as well. Earlier ford Distributors like the 1966 one I had put up has the thicker shaft like the TFI does, but is still shorter like the dura-spark and needs the longer oil shaft. I did lots of reading up on this. I physically measured and as I had read only about 1/4" went into the GT distributor. I had Autozone look it up on there computer and it shows the same oil pump shaft part number for the TFI and the 85 GT engine, but that is wrong. There is about 1/2" length different in these two distributors. To show the difference.
If it causes you concern running a steel gear on your roller cam, pull the galley plug that's right behind it and drill a small hole in it (mine are threaded for pipe plugs, roughly .020" hole).
Oh oh, this is where i might be in trouble. The 87 roller i have was converted to the old 70's style front timming cover, pulleys, front sump pan. The engine was in a 70 mustang brought up from Texas, running good, and pulled in favour of a real 1970 power train.Trouble is i basicly got the long block with no dizzy, intake etc. I'm assuming the oil pump is from a earlier 302 to accommodate the front sump pan . The engine is in the car but i can measure the distance from the shaft to the engine block surface. Thanks for the info. You may have saved me some trouble i wasn't aware of.
It kind of bit me too last month. Most of the 302's I had dealt with were older ones or pre-roller engines. I haven't even heard of the low performance roller engines before this one and was very surprised when I seen the cam spider after stripping the intake off. These lo-po engines have S belt set up but have standard rotation water pump, you just tighten them like the v belt set up, cast pistons, smog heads, early 289/302 firing order. I had planned on simply removing the roller cam gear and swapping the distributor gear. And that is where it changed for me.
Bronze gears are for race cars with STEEL Billet Roller cams. They are not necessary for the standard roller cams and in fact are a sacrificial part that is meant to give itself up for the life of the cam. On the street you'll be luck y to get 3,000 miles out of one. The early flat tappet cam dist gears should not be used with factory rollers either. The stock Ford ones from a roller motor are the ones to use. We build our own for the PerTronix distributors and they are melonized to work with both types of cams, but just like the MSD one you bought, our shafts are larger diameter than stock so they won't fit a stock distributor
I have only found one legnth oil pump shaft. Yes the tfi distributor has a longer shaft, but they both use the same drive shaft. I put a 1996 5.0 truck long block together and used a 1985 gt mustang dizzy. If you measure the depth of the broched hole I think you will find that there is no way to use a 1/2'' longer shaft.
Until I had ran into this engine I dropped into my 52 I had only seen the one length shaft too. I compared them. The EFI one is longer. 289-302 8.19" EEC-IV 5.0 7.2" ( have seen up to 7.5" listed as the true length, I didn't measure mine to see I just swapped it with a older one) M6605-A302 for 289/302 (non EEC-IV engines) M6605-B302 for 87-95 5.0s Ford Motorsport catalog numbers. They are listed as two different lengths. In the 2006 ford catalog there is suppose to be a warning on them also on the different lengths. I have also later on read that they made some more changes and they have a one size fit all shaft now. Not sure when that change was made or what length they decided to go with.
When I put mine together I measured the depth of bore in distributor and it was not deep enough to use much longer shaft. the 1994 and 1996 302s I have have a 7.45'' long shaft in them. No way a 8.19'' shaft would have worked? May be differant oil pumps? The ford racing catalog only list one now, but they do not list legth. Melling catalog list same from 68-01 and length 7.44? Very interesting!!!
Ford has changed a lot of stuff over the years. When they went EFI they had several change over on parts. There are even a few one year only parts. There is no telling what someone else before you, me or anyone else may have done either. When I get home I will have to measure both shafts. I just seen one was a little longer and went with it.
ive got a 96 302 crate engine and im pretty sure it said not to run a bronze gear on the dizzy as it would chew it up
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