O/T:Old's DOHC engine, cam drive looks like Sneaky Pete Robinson's Cammer set-up

[machoneman]

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/the-w43-oldsmobiles-dohc-455-v8-that-never-was/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lightning72/3813287348/

[ScotiaFE]

That would not be difficult to copy.
If one had a SOHC in the making and wanted a gear drive.
I have a good block, but short on the heads, intake and valve stuff. 

Gears are not hard to produce and there are lots of starving gear hobbers.

[jayb]

One of our forum members, and a friend of mine, has a set of Sneaky Pete's gears brand new in the box.  He's been sick lately, but when he gets better I've been thinking about trying to talk him out of them long enough for a photo session.  If I can do that I'll post some pictures here; that gear drive is definitely one of the coolest SOHC accessories around...

[WConley]

Dove had some gear drives in the 90's, and he tried to sell me one when I first got my engine.  The $2K at the time seemed a bit steep (though maybe not now).

I bought a 2x4 intake from a guy in Lake Havasu, AZ who had a cammer with a custom gear drive.  It looked very well made, though he hadn't fired it yet.

There's some cool stuff lurking if you know where to look!

[GJCAT427]

I never understood why Ford never used gear drive on the SOHC, more than likely cost. Lots of engines use gear drive with very sucessful results. On a cammer oiling might have been an issue but there are simple ways to adress that. As far as the chain strech gearing would be less of an issue in the timming.

[machoneman]

My guess as to why Ford used a chain drive relates to the often quoted 90-day wonder status of the SOHC's design. I'll venture the head design itself was more challenging to the engineers, witness the 1st cammer that had the spark plugs on the lower side of the covers and the port design IIRC didn't produce the expected HP. Moving the plugs to the topside and reworking the intake port to what became the final design did the trick. Anyway, whipping on a chain drive simplified a lot the entire exercise and allowed what we today would call fast prototyping.

Keep in mind too Ford already had a wonderful gear drive on the famed 255 Indy DOHC  engine so they did know how to 'do' a great drive system.  There is a good pic of this engine's drive system in the lower half of this link:

http://www.wrljet.com/fordv8/indy.html

I'd also venture that if the SOHC ended up in large scale production it likely would have also acquired a gear drive.

 

[BruceS]

JMO, I wonder whether Ford would've gone to a gear drive if the Cammer went to large-scale production... What would be the advantages?  To me disadvantages of gears would be noise and cost.  Having said that, they had the gear drive setup proven through the 4-cam Indy engine program; AJ Foyt won his 2nd and 4th 500 using one.

What would Ford use if the Cammer were designed today?  I'd venture a chain or belt setup, since those have now been proven on so many modern engines. 

Bruce

[jayb]

The other thing would have been noise; gears may have been too noisy for a production vehicle.  Although in the '60s, who knows...

[lovehamr]

There is a good pic of this engine's drive system in the lower half of this link:
http://www.wrljet.com/fordv8/indy.html

I've always thought that little engine looked like a nice Swiss watch :