The guys at Then And Now were all fired up about this engine and had seen it race. Great effort and results. Go Buick
Think of the Jesel drive seen with Chevies, Ford's... There's a sprocket on the cam, then a belt is attached to it and also to the shortened distributor. The cam and crank are still connected via belt or chain. This the same method as seen on Gary K and Wayne's engines which is why they have no timing cover
I now this may be an obvious situation to some but, whats the purpose, reliability? horsepower? consistency? thanks. gary
Not an expert on this but I think all of the above and it frees up room on the front of the engine. If your running a solid block and a ext belt driven pump theres no need for the timing cover except to mount the dist( on our engines)
Thanks, I'm just an old school racer and bracket/index weekend warrior that relies on simplicity and going rounds. This stuff is new to me. gary
Some of the benefits I can think of, more room as mentioned, easy cam timing adjustment if wanting to test different crank to cam timing, with the external oil system all the issues with the restrictions of oil flow in a cover are eliminated, no worrying about an I running the correct gear on my distributor for the cam, I would think the belts would stretch less, especially the little one for distributor drive, it can't take much to turn that thing, allows easy running of a mag size cap....this spreads the terminals farther apart to allows less chance of cross firing.....with this stronger ignitions, there is more inonization of the air inside the cap. A mag cap can be used on a front cover but there is very little room for adjustment for timing/phasing. Picture is of my motor with mag cap on distributor.
You certainly don't want to see my distributor then.lol, its an old mallory dual point guy converted to electronic, terminals are about 1/2" apart.
Pro Stock guys have had these things for years. I'm glad that jesel has customization availability for any engine. I love to get rid of the front cover and run something else. But the reality of it is, I'll be on a road course for 20 or so it laps. so that's setup wouldn't work for me I don't think. On the other hand, the engine aboce is doing circle track racing with that setup...does anyone know if your engine is dry some I forgot or is it just have an external pump? Hmm.. Buick Motorsports had a competition front cover for the stage 2 v6. I wonder how much that would take for a 455?
Gar, It was explained to me years ago that it eliminates some "harmonics" through the camshaft also. In my mind/opinion it really simplifies the front of the engine vs. using a Buick timing cover. For someone like myself that tends to obsess over some particulars it really smoothed out the cam degreeing process. You can very simply change cam timing, even at the track if you want. And most of all it was just something I always wanted. So I made it just to see if I could, I guess.
You did a great job Gary, I can see the flexibility it gives for cam timing etc. probably beyond my feeble mind, or ambition. I'm too old school and simplistic and have been quite successful too, so teaching this dog new tricks is probably counterproductive, lol. Those that pursue these new aspects of technology and improvements have all my respect, its never easy and sometimes costly.