Timing Gear Drive
In my line of work I've been seeing more and more Chinese imports and some of them are just great quality so I feel I have to discount my natural cynicism in that regard. The Chinese factories will make what the importer wants and if they specify higher quality that's what they give em, if they specify cheap then that's what they get. Its like the old "made in japan' myth. It no longer equates that Chinese goods are necassarily junk. They might be, they might not be. So that's why I was looking for someone to say what their real life experience was with the CAT sets. Very good point though about them being unproven as yet.
I was reading more and while the harmonics thing is valid, there's also the point that heavy spring pressures may wear out a chain prematurely. I remember the 354 hemi I had many moons ago that had spark bounce at the timing marks. Rebuilt the distributor, new intermeadiate bushing, still bounced. Was it the chain? I dunno but I thought I might like to avoid the situation if I could.
If the gears didn't make noise I'd still consider them for the precision and accuracy. This isn't a pretend motor but if it sounded wicked too, well that's OK. I think the whole point of a hemi dart is to generate excitement, no?