kchaazz
20+ Year Contributor
- 1,166
- 80
- Oct 2, 2002
-
PENSACOLA,
Florida
This is not a review of this product, I am only trying to come up with a fix for an issue that has been bothering me for quite some time now.
Ive had Fidanza cam gears for a while now. I dont have any real problems with these, such as stripping bolts cause I use an "inch- pound" torque wrench and tighten the nuts to 45 inch pounds per the instructions. I do however have an issue with the bolts that are serving as studs on these gears. Everytime I play with my settings, tightening each nut results in the bolt for that nutloosening where it is threaded into the backside of the gear and you really have to watch for this and use an allen key to hold the bolt so that it cannot back out when you tighten the nut.
Id really like to try and come up with a solution to this issue because not only is it inconvenient to have to hold an allen on the back side of the gear when tightening the nuts, Id hate to imagine the pain in the ass that will ensue if one were to drop the allen key into the lower timing cover.
So, to any of you who use these gears, have you found a way to lock the bolts in place? Red loctite on the bolts where they are threaded into the gear perhaps? Ive already established that I cannot simply torque the bolts tight as the damn allen hex threatens to strip on me, so just snug is the best I can do. Has anyone tried removing the bolts from the backside, and abandoning the "stud" setup by getting bolts of the same length, size and thread pitch but with a larger allen hex (so it wont strip) and threading these in through the front of the gears like all the other adustable gears on the market? This is just ridiculous, seriously. Ive got to do a lot of rotating of the gears in order to tighten these nuts in a star pattern, not to mention there is only one good position that allows the allen key to be used to hold the bolt in place, so I basically have to torque one nut, then snug a couple others so it wont slip, rotate almost all the way around, do the next nut.
For clarity, if I dont hold the bolt with the allen, it will spin counter clockwise when I tighten the nut on that bolt, and while the nut will still tighten to spec with the bolt backed out a little, I dont trust that a bit and believe it would be asking for trouble.
Ive had Fidanza cam gears for a while now. I dont have any real problems with these, such as stripping bolts cause I use an "inch- pound" torque wrench and tighten the nuts to 45 inch pounds per the instructions. I do however have an issue with the bolts that are serving as studs on these gears. Everytime I play with my settings, tightening each nut results in the bolt for that nutloosening where it is threaded into the backside of the gear and you really have to watch for this and use an allen key to hold the bolt so that it cannot back out when you tighten the nut.
Id really like to try and come up with a solution to this issue because not only is it inconvenient to have to hold an allen on the back side of the gear when tightening the nuts, Id hate to imagine the pain in the ass that will ensue if one were to drop the allen key into the lower timing cover.
So, to any of you who use these gears, have you found a way to lock the bolts in place? Red loctite on the bolts where they are threaded into the gear perhaps? Ive already established that I cannot simply torque the bolts tight as the damn allen hex threatens to strip on me, so just snug is the best I can do. Has anyone tried removing the bolts from the backside, and abandoning the "stud" setup by getting bolts of the same length, size and thread pitch but with a larger allen hex (so it wont strip) and threading these in through the front of the gears like all the other adustable gears on the market? This is just ridiculous, seriously. Ive got to do a lot of rotating of the gears in order to tighten these nuts in a star pattern, not to mention there is only one good position that allows the allen key to be used to hold the bolt in place, so I basically have to torque one nut, then snug a couple others so it wont slip, rotate almost all the way around, do the next nut.
For clarity, if I dont hold the bolt with the allen, it will spin counter clockwise when I tighten the nut on that bolt, and while the nut will still tighten to spec with the bolt backed out a little, I dont trust that a bit and believe it would be asking for trouble.
