Jump to content
SAU Community

Cam gears- materials,design,failures

FATGTS-R
 Share

Recommended Posts

FATGTS-R Experienced

FATGTS-R

Posted
Posted

One of the next things I plan to do with my car is install some cam gears so have begun to do some research.

MATERIALS:

Looking at the advertising speels a lot of companies (recently HKS comes to mind) promote the materials they use citing fancy metal names (duralymium sp?) that the layman has never heard of.

Why? Do cheaper, supposedly less quality gears brake, wear out etc? I ask as my car is from 1987 with what I assume are the original factory gears and they look fine. What are the factory ones made of?

DESIGN:

Cruising around the net looking at images of different brands of gears the one that stood out as odd was HKS in the fact they only have 3 bolts to tighten the adjustable part as opposed to most others having 4 or 5 and I think I saw one with six.

Isnt it obvious that the more securing bolts the better? Or am I missing something? Why would HKS, a supposedly reputable a/m parts supplier skimp in that area?

FAILURES:

Lastly, who has had a bad expereince with cam gears? Either failure of some sort, premature wear etc? What exactly happened and what brand were they?

Just hoping to get some decent feedback and maybe help a few others who want more than an anodised cog that matches there colour scheme.

Also would like to hear from people who have had custom cam gears made. Material used, pricing etc.

Thanks in advance.

Jayson.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/73956-cam-gears-materialsdesignfailures/
Share on other sites
MSRB26 Enthusiast

MSRB26

Posted
Posted

Although not from personal experience i have heard of failures with HKS gears on more than one occation and it has always been related to the teeth on the gear as the material seems to be too soft and wears quickly. Has anyone else heard of this?

I am currently using Tomei and have had no issues.

Amaru Veteran

Amaru

Posted
Posted

On the "series 1" design of the HKS cam gears, the metal used for the teeth the belt sits on is too soft, and I have seen a few which have worn away pretty quickly (under 15,000kms). You can identify the series 1 design as having the purple center and blue outer edges.

The "series 2" design is made out of the same metals as Tomei's cam gears, and I havnt heard or seen any problems with the Tomei ones.

djr81 Grand Master

djr81

Posted
Posted

Duralium is simply a variant of aluminium that has increased wear resistance due to its hardness (As the name suggests).

Tomei have used it for ages & now HKS have come into line.

If you are worried about wear the answer is pretty simple: LEAVE THE TIMING COVER ON YOUR ENGINE!

predator Grand Master

predator

Posted
Posted

I would have thought a lot of the wank associated with the material would also be for weight reasons. Less weight = less reciprical mass on the drive system, which is a good thing.

I would have also thought 3 bolts was pretty strong to hold the whole gear in place, considering your tensioners only have one. Bolts don't often snap unless put under extreme heat, in front of the engine is relatively cool (otherwise the timing belt would also be not be made of rubber in this case)

If you are worried about wear the answer is pretty simple: LEAVE THE TIMING COVER ON YOUR ENGINE!

why? wouldn't it make more sense to leave it off so you can spot the wear? or is that what you mean??

Sydneykid Grand Master

Sydneykid

Posted
Posted

Leaving the cam belt cover off lets dust and dirt in, wears the belt and cam gears very fast. I have even seen a small rock get caught in between the belt and the pulley, ripped the belt to pieces. And many valves hit many pistons.

The Stagea needed a cambelt service, so I figured I might as well stick an adjustable exhaust camshaft pulley on there while I was doing that. I ordered a Tomei pulley from Nengun, but apparently they don't make them any more. So I opted for a HKS one made of the new material. It weighs 350 grams (standard camshaft pulley is 550 grams) which is quite a bit lighter than the Jun ones I have that are going on the new RB31DET.

I haven't done a propper hardness test on the teeth on HKS pulleys, but the scratch test comes up pretty good. I am not concerned with 3 bolts, I always use Locktite on them anyway.:cheers:

pnblight Mentor

pnblight

Posted
Posted
The OS giken cam gears are made out ouf the same material as the Tomei gears, but are alot cheaper in price, almost half the price.

damn you must be getting your os giken cheap cos i payed under $200 a piece for my tomei wheels

treo Collaborator

treo

Posted
Posted

i got my os giken adjustable cam gear $120 brand new in box privated on Firesport.com, i two used locktite however left my top cam cover off. I dont see this to be a problem dont live near salty water and i know not to put my hands there so i see there to be know real problem

Sydneykid Grand Master

Sydneykid

Posted
Posted
i got my os giken adjustable cam gear $120 brand new in box privated on Firesport.com, i two used locktite however left my top cam cover off. I dont see this to be a problem dont live near salty water and i know not to put my hands there so i see there to be know real problem

The RTA are resurfacing the road near my house, I found a small rock on top of my airfilter last week.

Be carefull:cheers:

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • MBS206
      Duncan's V37.......race car?

      By MBS206 · Posted

      Even more fun, leave all the ADAS stuff plugged in, but in different locations, hopefully avoid any codes!   And honestly, all these new cars with their weird electronics. Pull all the electronics out Duncan, and just shove an aftermarket ECU and if needed a trans controller in, along with a PDM. Make it run basic but race car styled!
    • Duncan
      Duncan's V37.......race car?

      By Duncan · Posted

      To follow up a question from earlier too since I had the front bar off again (fking!) This is what is between the bumper and the drivers side wheel And this is the navigator side, only one thing but its a biggy! So basically....no putting coolers in the wheel arches without a lot of moving other stuff. Assuming I move to properly race prepping this car I'll take that job on and see how the computers respond to removing a whole bunch of ADAS modules
    • Duncan
      Duncan's V37.......race car?

      By Duncan · Posted

      So I prepped the car for another track day on Wednesday (will be interesting to see coolant temps post flushing out and the larger reservoir, with a forecast of 3-14 being 20o cooler than last time I took it out). Couple of things to mention; since I am just driving the car and not taking a support vehicle, I took the rear seats out and just loaded the back up Team Trackday style. Look at all that space! To cover off removing the rear seat....it is weird (note the hybrid is probably different because it wouldn't have folding rear seats) Basically, you remove the lower seat base, very similar to a r series but it is a clip that pulls forward to release the base rather than it being bolted down. Easy Then, you need to remove the side section of the rear seat on each side. There is a 14mm head nut at the bottom of the side piece, the it slides upwards off a hook at the top to release; you also need to unhook the seatbelt from the loop at the top. Then the centre piece is weird. You need to release/fold the seats forward with the tab in the boot on each side From there, there are 2,x12mm headed bolts holding the rear of each seat to the folding bracket, under the trim between the rear seat and the boot (4x christmas tree clips there, they suck). The seat is out but you can see where the bolts attach to the bracket
    • RP1421
      S15 Spec R

      By RP1421 · Posted

      As discussed in the previous post, the bushes in the 110 needed replacing. I took this opportunity to replace the castor bushes, the front lower control arm, lower the car and get the alignment dialled in with new tyres. I took it down to Alignment Motorsports on the GC to get this work done and also get more out of the Shockworks as I felt like I wasn't getting the full use out of them.  To cut a very long story short, it ended up being the case the passenger side castor arm wouldn't accept the brand new bush as the sleeve had worn badly enough to the point you could push the new bush in by hand and completely through. Trying a pair of TRD bushes didn't fix the issue either (I had originally gone with Hardrace bushes). We needed to urgently source another castor arm, and thankfully this was sourced and the guys at the shop worked on my car until 7pm on a Saturday to get everything done. The car rides a lot nicer now with the suspension dialled in properly. Lowered the car a little as well to suit the lower profile front tyres, and just bring the car down generally. Eternally thankful for the guys down at the shop to get the car sorted, we both pulled big favours from our contacts to get it done on the Saturday.  Also plugged in the new Stedi foglights into the S15, and even from a quick test in the garage I'm keen to see how they look out on the road. I had some concerns about the length of the LED body and whether it'd fit in the foglight housing but it's fine.  I've got a small window coming up next month where I'll likely get a little paint work done on the 110 to remove the rear wing, add a boot wing and roof wing, get the side skirt fixed up and colour match the little panel on the tail lights so that I can install some badges that I've kept in storage. I'm also tempted to put in a new pair of headlights on the 110.  Until then, here's some more pictures from Easter this year. 
    • joshuaho96
      R32 GTS (RB20DE) Injectors Replacement

      By joshuaho96 · Posted

      I would put a fuel pressure gauge between the filter and the fuel rail, see if it's maintaining good fuel pressure at idle going up to the point when it stalls. Do you see any strange behavior in commanded fuel leading up to the point when it stalls? You might have to start going through the service manual and doing a long list of sensor tests if it's not the fuel system for whatever reason.
×
×
  • Create New...