DO GEAR DRIVES REALLY GIVE OFF ENOUGH HARMONICS TO CAUSE ENGINE DAMAGE? CAN THERE BE ENOUGH HARMONICS TO GET UP INTO YOUR VALVE TRAIN AND CAUSE A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON POWER? CARS AT THE STRIP DONT SEEM TO HAVE THEM BUT THEY SURE DO SEEM TO POPULAR. I REALLY REALLY LIKE THE SOUND OF THE NOISY ONES BUT I SPIN MY MOTOR OVER 6,000 RPMS AND DONT WANT TO LOSE ANY POWER OR HURT MY MOTOR JUST FOR THE SAKE OF THE SOUND.  

I've never heard of damage resulting from using a gear drive alot of older foreign cars use them and diesel engines do also. Also noisey gear drives are just that noisey or better put "LOUD" so at speed forget about listening to the radio if it's a cruiser that is.  

i have wondered lately if people like the sound of gear drives because thats the sound our toy cars made...with their straight cut plastic tranmission gears and tiny electric motors...       wwwwwhhhhhhiiiiiirrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    that looks like something out of mad magazine...


i would really think a high strength magnet in the pan would be a great idea with them...  

The only thing harmonics from a gear drive could possibly do is set the knock sensor of in a later model car if the sensor hasn't been de-tuned accordingly.

Guys like geardrives for the blower-like sound they make. For certain applications, they offer more accurate cam-to-crankshaft phasing/timing because you don't have issues with chain stretch. Pete Robinson did this back int he 60s when he figured out why all the 427 SOHC motors were blowing up on nitro. Pete figured out that under hard load and RPM the factory timing chain was streching severely causing the timing to advance and blow the motor up. He came up with a full geardrive system for the Cammer motors, then they stopped having trouble with them blowing up on nitro.

The down side is the parasitic power loss of the gears.

The old Ford 300 I-6 used a basic gear drive instead of a timing chain, along with other older inline engines.  

YEA THE 427 SOHC ENGINE IS MY DREAM ENGINE. I WOULD JUST LIKE TO OWN ONE JUST THE WAY IT CAME BRAND NEW BACK THEN. I WOULD PUT IT IN THE LIVING ROOM IN A GLASS CASE AND HUG IT EVERY DAY---MAYBE EVEN TWICE A DAY. I WOULD GIVE IT A NAME AND PUT A BLANKET ON IT AT NIGHT TO KEEP IT WARM.....IS THAT STRANGE--DR. PHIL MIGHT THINK SO BUT I DONT... I WAS UNAWARE THAT THE FORD 300 USED THEM. I KNOW SOME GM 6 CYL. USED THEM BUT THERE NOT RUNNING HIGH RPMS. THE ONLY REASON I WOULD RUN ONE IS I REALLY LIKE THE SOUND. BUT I HAVE HAD 2 HIGH END ENGINE BUILDERS SAY THEY ABSOLUTLY WILL NOT NEVER EVER PUT ONE IN ANYTHING THEY BUILD. ONE GUY ACTULLY GOT MAD AT ME WHEN I ASK HIM WHAT HE THOUGHT OF GEAR DRIVES. HE LOOKED AT ME LIKE I JUST ASK HIM IF I COULD USE ONE OF HIS BEST MOTORS FOR A BOAT ANCHOR..