Replacement 9-Way Adjustable Secondary Sprockets

[RussZTT]

I’d be interested in a set but looking to buy in the next month. I may just get a set of Comp Cams sprockets.

[eschaider]

Ed,

I just posted it up, we'll see what happens. I know I am interested in a set.

--Joe

Thanks Joe.

I hope there is enough interest to get someone to risk his capital to build these things.



Ed

[4sdvenom]

I would definitely buy a set. I have a brand new motor in the works and have nothing yet for timing gears. I do not want to use stock timing gears either in a straight up setting or deal with the hassle of filing and what not to the stock gears to dial them in.

Edit:
The filing is for the primary gears, but the adjustable secondary gears are something I definitely need too.

Count me for a set.
Ken

[eschaider]

Several of you guys have PM'd me asking about a billet steel replacement for the crank sprocket. Boundry offers one that is made from 4340 steel and heat treated to a Rockwell 56C or better. These are tough pieces! Here is a link to the Boundry site => Billet Crank Sprocket.

These are the 21 tooth crank sprockets not the smaller 20 tooth (I believe) sprocket that was used on the late production supercharged 5.4's. This sprocket will work with the standard 42 tooth primary gears on the exhaust cams like all 4.6L engines use.


Ed

[Stangman105]

Cloyes has stopped manufacturing their adjustable secondary gears for the 4V Modmotor for more than a year now. The inventory in the distribution channel has dried up and the gears are essentially not available anymore.

I was speaking with the folks at Boundry's pump division. They currently make a billet heat treated 21 tooth 4340 crank gear for the 4.6L and 5.4L engines. Travis has been considering making 9-Way adjustable gears for the cams but has not yet.

If Boundry could make a heat treated 4340 9-Way adjustable secondary gear set available again how much interest is there out there for this type of product?


Ed

How can it possibly be that no one makes an adjustable gear??? Did people just stop building 4 valve motors? NOOOOOOOO
What are people suppose to do? Aren't mod motors expensive enough to build as it is. I guess we need to price the average guy out of everything right? God knows we can't afford to do much of anything these days
I just sent him a message on his contact page

- - - Updated - - I

[RussZTT]

Comp cams makes adjustable sprockets.

How can it possibly be that no one makes an adjustable gear??? Did people just stop building 4 valve motors? NOOOOOOOO
What are people suppose to do? Aren't mod motors expensive enough to build as it is. I guess we need to price the average guy out of everything right? God knows we can't afford to do much of anything these days
I just sent him a message on his contact page

- - - Updated - - I

[eschaider]

I just got off the phone with the Comp guys, Russ. Those Comp sprockets are limited in their range of adjustment but more significantly they are only for the primary chains. The guy I spoke to at comp didn't understand why you couldn't run a primary gear/sprocket as a secondary. He obviously was uninformed. It turns out Comp has no secondary 9-Way adjustable gears for the Modmotor. They do have some telephone support people who don't understand why or how adjustable secondary gears are different from adjustable primary gears.

The real world answer to whether or not they have 9-Way adjustable secondary gears is they not only do not have them, nor do they know why they are necessary. Sad testimonial ...


Ed

[RussZTT]

Thanks, Ed. Do any of them sell all 4? I only see the intake sprockets being sold.

I just got off the phone with the Comp guys, Russ. Those Comp sprockets are limited in their range of adjustment but more significantly they are only for the primary chains. The guy I spoke to at comp didn't understand why you couldn't run a primary gear/sprocket as a secondary. He obviously was uninformed. It turns out Comp has no secondary 9-Way adjustable gears for the Modmotor. They do have some telephone support people who don't understand why or how adjustable secondary gears are different from adjustable primary gears.

The real world answer to whether or not they have 9-Way adjustable secondary gears is they not only do not have them, nor do they know why they are necessary. Sad testimonial ...


Ed

[Stangman105]

I just got off the phone with the Comp guys, Russ. Those Comp sprockets are limited in their range of adjustment but more significantly they are only for the primary chains. The guy I spoke to at comp didn't understand why you couldn't run a primary gear/sprocket as a secondary. He obviously was uninformed. It turns out Comp has no secondary 9-Way adjustable gears for the Modmotor. They do have some telephone support people who don't understand why or how adjustable secondary gears are different from adjustable primary gears.

The real world answer to whether or not they have 9-Way adjustable secondary gears is they not only do not have them, nor do they know why they are necessary. Sad testimonial ...


Ed

I got an email back from Travis already. He said " They are looking at this hard and will know something soon"

[eschaider]

Thanks, Ed. Do any of them sell all 4? I only see the intake sprockets being sold.

They have no adjustable intake sprockets for sale, Russ. They only have the large primary drive gear that attaches to the exhaust cam on a 4V or the single cam on a 2V or 3V. They have no 9-Way Cloyes style adjustable secondary gears.


Ed

[RussZTT]

My mistake, I mean the primaries. I’ll need something in the next month to purchase. Any recommendations?

They have no adjustable intake sprockets for sale, Russ. They only have the large primary drive gear that attaches to the exhaust cam on a 4V or the single cam on a 2V or 3V. They have no 9-Way Cloyes style adjustable secondary gears.


Ed

[eschaider]

Right now the best bet is finding a set of 'used but not abused' Cloyes sprockets. The challenge is that Cloyes appears to have had a QC problem at some point in time with the sprockets. The occasional bad sprocket's marked cam offset in degrees was not what you expected when you chose that particular keyway. Frequently these whoops gears would/could make little to no difference in cam phasing from keyway to keyway. To their credit, Cloyes would exchange those items for good stock. The problem now is that Cloyes is no longer making the product so if you get a bad set, then you've got a bad set. Sort of a buyer be ware situation these days because Cloyes no longer makes the gears..

Craig (Stangman105) was recently telling me about some clown on eBay that was offering a pair of the Cloyes 9-Way's for over $1,000. Talk about an opportunist! We will see more of this kind of stuff as time goes on. Even if the gears were reasonably priced (whatever that means) how do you credibly explain to the guy who sold them to you that they are bad. If he didn't know, he won't believe you. His response will be something like learn how to use them. If he did know, he clearly doesn't care and certainly won't acknowledge it because he was trying to dump them on someone else and you just happened to be the someone else. I'll give you two guesses about how that story ends and the first guess doesn't count.

The best solution right now is to wait out the look see effort that Boundry is giving the opportunity. If they decide there is enough aftermarket interest to build the gears then we will have a production source for product. If they don't then it is going to fall to some individual entrepreneur who is willing to risk the sunk costs of development and production.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about;


For purposes of this example I am mostly pulling the numbers out of the air, although several may be closer to the mark than you might expect for SWAG's
.

SetUp cost — 1,000
Spindle time for one gear — 15 minutes
Spindle time — $70/hr
Raw materials — $5
Tooling $1,000
Tooling Life cycle —10,000 pcs
Cutters $50
Cutter life cycle — 100 pcs.
Heat treat — $500/ 100pcs
Order quantity 1000 pcs


With those sorts of variables one gear would have a production cost of ~$29 and a unit run cost of $29,000. for the first 500 sets. Add to that the cost of packaging, say $2 per set and you are basically $60 per pair of gears manufacturing cost. That means those gears at a fire sale would go for $120 per pair and at fair market value would look more like $180 per pair and reducing production volumes only raises unit costs.

BTW anyone out there have $30K burning a hole in their pocket that would like to take a shot at this kind of project? Most enthusiasts will say no. That means we need a business to step up to the plate and roll the dice that they can sell the entire production run in a reasonable period of time.

Interesting gamble isn't it ...



Ed

[cobraracer46]

I would be interested in a set of adjustable gears as well. As good as the Coyote /voodoo power plants are , I prefer to stick with the 4.6 DOHC motor and the aftermarket support for the 4.6 is still good. At least Ford Performance still offers a complete timing gear set for the 4.6 DOCH motor although such a set does not have adjustable gears, but it's better than nothing.

[Screamn03]

L&M just made an announcement on FaceBook that over the next week or so look for a preorder link to 9 way adjustable billet secondary gears.

[Stangman105]

L&M just made an announcement on FaceBook that over the next week or so look for a preorder link to 9 way adjustable billet secondary gears.

Yay!!!