I'm about 400 miles into the break in on my 103 bore kit. Replaced PCIII with SERT, put the S&S Gear Drive with 510's. Despite the fact that it runs great and is very strong there is a bit of extra "whirring/whining" noise at cruising speeds that I'm noticing. I know that the strait cut gears on the cam drive can or will cause some of this, but how much is normal, and could there be a problem with the break in that might be causing this noise? No issues with performance, just the noise.

Anyone?

I can live with it if its normal ...

Eddie

 

Was backlash checked? Some of the times its necessary for the use of over/under sized gears to make completely quiet.

 

Smokin,

I installed gear driven cams this winter and was not expecting this much whine either. The bike starts out whining like a little girl while it is cold, however becomes very faint once it is good and hot.

I have done a lot of research and had a lot of knowledgeable people listen to the bike. They say that it actually is pretty quiet for a gear driven cam and that it is gong to whine a lot more cold that hot. Some people get a ticking noise as oppossed to a whine. This would indicate too much backlash and would require an oversized gear which would decrease the ticking, however increase the whine.

If the whining doesnt quiet down as it heats up, then you have too little backlash which can be bad and cause you problems down the road. The only way to correct this is with an undersized gear. These over and undersized gears are available directly from Andrews, which is who makes the S & S gears.

The bottom line is really this. If you have a properly installed gear driven cam, it is going to whine quitea bit while cold and may tick a little bit while warm. There really is no way to get it to be slient and if you cant live with that then you have to go back to the chains.

 

I guess I got lucky as mine are quiet cold and hot. My run out was low ~.0015and my back lash was perfect. Cams are 26G's.If you heard itrunning you would not be able to tell it had gear drives.
One of my buddies is so loud that it sounds like it is going to blow up yet has not caused any mechanical problems. So a lot of it is just luck.

 

I've got 2000 miles on My gear drive cams , a little bit of a whine when cold and ticking when warm . sounds like My old Shovel lol

 

What kind of oil are you using ?? I broke my 95" build in w/ reg 20-50 h/d and it sounded like a roulette wheel.. switched back to me Mobil 1 15-50 syn. and all's quiet now. they all seem to have a different whine. Steve