Evaluate Timing chain sets

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dkamp

dkamp

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I am getting ready to buy a timing chain set for a 318.
Who has opinions of what Brand/PN I should get for a stock 318?
Should I get a Double Roller? True Roller? Edelbrock? Cloyes?
Help please.
DKamp
 
Billet and around 100 bucks or you don't have a good one. At this point, I wouldn't put Cloyes on anything. Total Chinkesium. I like the JP/Rollmaster from Australia. Very nice.
 
Cloyes billet true roller it will be the last one you buy. Install it with a dripper and no timing chain tensioner, The tensioners are a waist of money and eat themselves up running on a roller chain. They were designed to be used with a silenced chain on the V6's
 
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I like this one. 100 % made in USA.
Ricks mopars on eBay.
 
Two weeks back, I fitted a new R/master t/chain set to an engine I am building. When I turned the crank by hand I heard a clicking noise. The Iwis chain was hanging up on the cam sprocket teeth. I compared the spkt to an old R/master spkt & you could see a difference in the tooth shape. Faulty machining. I fitted a spare Cloyes t/chain set with the Iwis chain, problem fixed.

The engine owner had bought the RM chain set. Had I known, I would have advised against it.

The RM history. Originally made in Queensland; well made, looked nice but neither spkt was hardened, just machined from hard steel. Result: spkt wear was quite rapid. Bob, the owner of RM, sold the business to JP Engineering in Sth Australia. JP now call them
selves Nornda. JP was in competition with RM & in my opinion the JP stuff was inferior. The current RM sets now have an induction hardened crank spkt, but the cam spkt remains un-hardened. I have been using Cloyes t/chain sets which have either hardened steel spkts, or hardened crank spkt & cast iron cam spkt which wears very well.
 
RustyRatRod said:
Billet and around 100 bucks or you don't have a good one. At this point, I wouldn't put Cloyes on anything. Total Chinkesium. I like the JP/Rollmaster from Australia. Very nice.
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I agree with this on the cloyes, they make the majority of chains now and they are less than impressive. My advice is to either use a summit billet chain ( just a cloyes like everything else but cheaper) and a tensioner or go with a pro gear chain, hughes sells them and it may be worth your time just to call them. The chain tensioner is like discussing politics around here but I will say our group has several of them in engines with zero issues and a lot of street time.
Progear – High Performance Automotive Timing Sets
 
One thing to remember about a tensioner. They were made to run on the flat side of a silent chain because of the slack in those chains due to cam to crank tunnel issues at the manufacture on the V6's
The spring pressure is different on every install due to slack in a cheap chain or a narrow cam to crank tunnel for which they were designed due to poor machine work on the V6's.

A properly installed true roller chain fitted to your specific cam to crank spacing on your engine should be slack free. Any constant tensioner spring pressure could cause premature stretch. the stretching of the chain will change the cam timing . Sure there will be no slap but you won't have to worry about chain slap with a good properly fitted chain.


My recommendation would be to buy a gear with the balancing built into it if using the pump eccentric, Most do not. Notice this gear pictured below does. We are now going to a belt drive to eliminated harmonics and reduce reciprocating weight.

Like I said above I would look into a good true roller chain with balance built in for the fuel pump eccentric. Does it mean much for a 7000 RPM street engine? probably not. But if your in there and you want to have something that will last your lifetime this is what I would suggest.

Yes there is politics involved in the tensioner. That is due to some members that have installed them because they took info delivered from others. Now that they have one they have the cats meow. Think of it this way. its just something else that can fail if the chain you install diggs into the tensioner due to it not having a flat surface as silent chains do. Most important is Less friction

Here is a good top gear with balance built in note no slack and was used 6 years. Saving it for another engine build with use of fuel pump eccentric. Most of the chain sets for the SBs made today are for engines using fuel injection and being sold for your old carbureted cars . They don't use a fuel pump or eccentric and are neutral balanced. Which for most home built street engine builders have installed with no issues yet.

Learn something new everyday . The one pictured in the post above looks to be neutral balanced for use without the eccentric. Harmonics/vibration plays hell on things. Wear on cam related issues?

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I guess Timing Chain discussions is a lot like an Oil Thread, but I'm fresh and new to this, so I like the info.
Please keep educating me.
I do intend to stay away from the Low-end sets but am aware each Mfr has different products of different quality.
How would I identify the details that would make a more expensive model to be a better product. The sales literature does not go into any details to justify the price difference. just with Cloyes they have several double roller sets with a big price spread.
Any opinions about Edlebrock 7803 at about $89 or Cloyes Street Billet True Roller 9-3503X9 ?

Ch1ll what Part number/Brand was that you posted about?

Oldmanmopar, what is a Dripper?
 
That is a billet cloyes true roller race chain with 10 timing keyway slots. The dripper is seen below the gear . It drips oil on the center of the lower sprocket. My just son saw this post. He stated that he called cloyes about the offset balance and the sales person he talked to didn't know at the time about the balance.

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I just installed a Cloyes roller and it seems fine. It wasn’t the cheapo one and has multiple key ways for changing the cam timing.
 
Oldmanmopar said:
Yes there is politics involved in the tensioner. That is due to some members that have installed them because they took info delivered from others. Now that they have one they have the cats meow.
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You just can't give an opinion on here without insinuating that those that don't agree with you are doing things the wrong way and/or are stupid. If you actually took your own advice (the advice you gave @72bluNblu) you would just stick to the facts and move on. The bottom line with this is there are many using the tensioner with success including engine builders like hughes engines who only do mopar. To the op my advice is to call hughes and Imm or a few other mopar engine builders and see what they say. In the end whatever chain you get if you don't use a tensioner pull the fuel pump in a few hundred miles or so and check the chain, that is the only way to know for sure if it worked out.

The one thing @Old Man Mopar and I agree on is the tensioner is a band aid, but when the majority of chains stretch I would rather have the band aid than a sloppy chain. Being curious I have also measured the affect a sloppy chain has on camshaft timing and was surprised to find out it was not as much as I expected, about a 1-1.5 degrees for a pretty sloppy chain. Running four speeds will stretch a subpar chain quickly.
 
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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Edelbrock true roller. I've bought and returned a few cloyes, from the el cheapo to their "best". Never had a problem with the Edelbrock chain and gears. A lot better fit than any cloyes I've tried
 
We had a '71 'Cuda 340/auto in the shop a bit over a year ago with 4,500 miles on the inexpensive Cloyes set. The car does not get driven hard or often, but the chain was sloppier than your prom date after a 4-pack of Bartles & Jaymes. One can't expect much from what was, until recently, a $30 timing set. The fella that installed it while freshining the engine has been dead for almost three decades, so it was a USA-made set. Cheap is cheap, regardless of country of origin.
 
NoCar340 said:
We had a '71 'Cuda 340/auto in the shop a bit over a year ago with 4,500 miles on the inexpensive Cloyes set. The car does not get driven hard or often, but the chain was sloppier than your prom date after a 4-pack of Bartles & Jaymes. One can't expect much from what was, until recently, a $30 timing set. The fella that installed it while freshining the engine has been dead for almost three decades, so it was a USA-made set. Cheap is cheap, regardless of country of origin.
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I agree, the thing that gets me is most all the chains I have seen with stretch in the past few years have been low miles and expensive billet roller chains of various brands. The only one I have really been impressed was a vintage rollmaster but that chain was dated back around early 2000's I believe. @Scody21 replaced a low miles billet chain that was sloppy with a pro gear from hughes and it will be interesting to see how it looks now that he has some miles on it, I cannot remember if he did the tensioner or not per hughes recommendations. Hopefully he will be doing his cam change soon and it will be on our dyno.
 
Bewy said:
The current RM sets now have an induction hardened crank spkt, but the cam spkt remains un-hardened.
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Are you talking the regular red or the gold? The gold series have both sprockets nitrided.
I've never had any issues with the Rollmaster sets and get pretty good mileage out of them. I pulled my 265 down last year for rings and bearings and decided to throw a new chain on while it was apart (rollmaster TC set) - I had about 70,0000km on that engine at the time and there was less slack in the old chain than there was on a brand new Comp cams timing set I put on my brothers 318.
No issues so far running the rollmaster dual row sets with a tensioner either.
 
Ted,
The engine in question was a Pontiac & RM only comes in red series; cam spkt is not hardened. The faulty cam sprocket mentioned in post #6 also has very rough machining marks on it.

I have three or four RM cam spts here that have tooth wear with less than 8000m wear on them. Teeth have started to 'hook' & you can also feel/see the displaced metal. I know of one gent who went back to using factory link chains because the RM sets wore quickly & this was with FT cams, not high spring tension roller cams.
Cast iron has exc wear characteristics, as seen by the high mileage obtained from factory t/chain sets. So I use those.
RM should nitride or harden ALL their sprockets. Failing to do so is akin to fitting soft metal valve seats in alum heads.
 
4spdragtop said:
Steve, I dont understand, can you explain the neutral balanced?
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Meaning they actually made some cam gears that accounted for not using the fuel pump eccentric. *they are balanced as you would a dampener.They accounted for that eccentric when they manufactured that cam gear. For that reason I leave The Eccentric on and just put a plate over the timing covers fuel pump mounting when using electric pumps...unless I wanna buy that specific gear set..
 
Thanks J, never knew that(surprise!!).
So how can u tell? So wouldnt me using the eccentric throw it "off balance"?
MOPAROFFICIAL said:
Meaning they actually made some cam gears that accounted for not using the fuel pump eccentric. *they are balanced as you would a dampener.They accounted for that eccentric when they manufactured that cam gear. For that reason I leave The Eccentric on and just put a plate over the timing covers fuel pump mounting when using electric pumps...unless I wanna buy that specific gear set..
Click to expand...
 
4spdragtop said:
Thanks J, never knew that(surprise!!).
So how can u tell? So wouldnt me using the eccentric throw it "off balance"?
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You mean and wear the front cam bearing? Probably. Thousands do and get by just fine.lol If you want to fix'ish it some 'back yard'.. open up one of the holes on the gear just below the eccentric . @4spdragtop
 
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4spdragtop said:
Steve, I dont understand, can you explain the neutral balanced?
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I would say everything must be balanced. Years ago at the beginning the LA had an nylon covered aluminum top gear. The balance for the eccentric would have been built into the camshaft as any turning engine part things need to be balanced. Today Good camshaft manufactures balance their cams. Sprockets/gears.

They would also be balanced just like a damper, converter, flywheel, or what ever spins, Even your factory rear axles with the hole to remove them has two smaller holes opposite to balance them after 67.

Having your cam and gear assembly with the eccentric attached balanced. That would tell you if your camshaft was balanced with the eccentric on it. If it was your timing gear/sprocket should be neutral balanced . Not all these race cams today consider the use of the oblong eccentric bolted to the front of the cam. Because the fuel pump was eliminated in 1988. 35 years ago.

Does it mean a lot if your street engine has a balance cam assembly? Who knows. But like I said before harmonics play hell on all rotating parts even your tires. Why would you see a reason for the holes on one side of this timing sprocket? I would say for balancing. And if the billet sprocket was that far out of balance on its own there would be an issue with material .

If my son gets freed up I'll see if I can get him to put this on the digital balancer for some numbers with a billet roller cam and a stock cam. With and without a eccentric.

I am also curious to see some numbers on this.

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