Reply to "377 Cleveland"

There are two steel distributor gears available for 351C (same gear as the
460):

1. Ford Motorsport Steel Gear
P/N M-12390-J (1.421" OD, 0.531" ID, for 351C) in the FRPP catalog.
From page 105 of the 2005 FRPP catalog: "Steel gears are compatible with
billet steel camshafts (hydraulic roller type)". Comp Cams also claims
the Ford gears are compatible with their -8 austempered ductile iron
hydraulic roller cam cores (Comp also uses the -8 cores for some solid
street roller cams but uses steel cam cores for race solid rollers).
According to MSD, the Ford mild steel distributor gears (as fitted to
engines with factory hydraulic-roller-cams) are softer than the common
ductile iron gears, but harder than bronze. MSD also claims that Chevy
uses a harder cam core for it's factory hydraulic rollers and uses cast
iron gears but that its gears don't last as long as the Ford gears.
Some 5.0L Ford racers have used the Ford gear on steel cam cores without
incident but Ford does not recommended it.

2. Crane Steel Gear
Crane has a coated steel gear which they claim is compatible with induction
hardened or carburized steel roller cores, as well as iron flat tappet cores.
Their website refers to them as "specially coated and processed steel
distributor gears using either cast flat faced lifter or steel roller
camshafts". They list two part numbers for 351C distributors:

52970-1 Ford V-8 70-82, Boss 351-351C-351M-400 for 0.500" shaft diameter
52971-1 Ford V-8 70-82, Boss 351-351C-351M-400 for 0.531" shaft diameter

Crane does not recommend the use of their gears on camshafts that have been
previously run with other types or materials of gears. Comp did not recommend
this gear on their -8 cores. I'm told but have not verified that Crane's
earliest steel gears were made like the Ford gears but their new gears are
different. We used this gear on a 408C recently with a steel cam (hydraulic
roller) from Crane.

Dan Jones