GEAR DRIVE OR CHAIN DRIVE

josepi88

New Member
Jan 30, 2008
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JUST BOUGHT AN 89 LX 5.0L CONVERTABLE
THE ENGINE MAKES A WHINING SOUND, AND THE OWNER SAYS ITS CAUSE ITS GEAR DRIVEN NOT CHAIN, CAUSE THEY CHANGED IT
DOES THAT ,MAKE SENSE
 
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does it have a rachet sound to it? I had a pete jackson NOISY gear drive for a few thousand miles, could not stand it and had to rip it out for a double roller. It gets REALLY high pitched when on the highway/or high RPMS and rings the heck out of your ears...

It was cool to roll into a car show with it, about 4500 rpms in 1st, people all turn and look. can't pop the hood though, no blower to back up the sound!!! not cool, that is another reason i got rid of it, don't know what the PO was thinking...
 
is it any better to have this?
can i make it any quieter?

Gear drives deliver more accuracy but are inherently noisey.

Is it better? To some degree, but not really necessary for 99% of the motors people here build.

Can you make it quiter? No. The noise you get come from the gear mesh. The only way it would be quiter is if it was a herring bone style gear (very pricey to make) or a helical cut gear which would induce axial loading on the crank and cam. So again, No.
 
Gear drives deliver more accuracy but are inherently noisey.

That is not exactly true compared to some of the new timing device designs; there has been an abundant of papers published regarding this topic. To sum it up without diving into too much detail, NASCAR uses belt drives for a reason.

Walz
 
i used to have a gear drive set. forgot the maker on it. it was so loud i could not hear my exhaust at low rpm's. i know if the gears come out of sync, the noise gets worse (or something like that). i could not stand the gear drive noise. i was too lazy to put a chain back on
 
I have an Edelbrock gear drive and yes, you can hear it, but it's not obnoxiously noisy. While I have a Vortech also, it is not overpowering. I actually have had people say they like it 'cause it doesn't sound like any other Mustang they've ever heard. To install a gear drive you must remove the chain oiler on the front cover, so if you decide you don't like it, you'll need a new cover. BTW it's been in motor for 13 yrs with no problems.