If you mean the time keeper, then no I won't be using those. I read a thread on another diesel site and the mechanic said to use chain and gears so if there is an issue the chain takes the brunt of the breakage and not the crank or cam. With unknown true mileage it might be a low cost insurance. Thanks.
Really not an option even if you wanted it right now because Leroy has people on a waiting list until he feta enough to do an order for the next batch to be made.
But I do want to share- I did tons of looking and chased down multiple people that were supposed to have had issues from the dsg sets (which is what Leroy’s are copied off of). 2 people swear o having that had been their issue and 2 that said maybe. Opposed to hundreds and hundreds that had no issues including myself when I had a similar but not exactly the same design custom made for my nitropropane race truck engines that I was running sponsored by GM. They found ZERO added issues from it and one of the engineers commented several times he wished they went with Detroit’s and Stanandyne’s recommendations of gear drive instead of chain.
But my use was short life, hard use. So I asked around for folks that were going the opposite- normal power and long life. I had near 100 people responded running them that had from 25,000 miles to a couple dozen over 200,000 miles. Both DSG and
Then looking into how did Ford do with the same exact ip with gear drive- longer ip life, longer everything life infact.
So who else designs their diesels with gear drive and NOT a chain? Cummins, Detroit, Cat, Mercedes, International, Volvo, Aro, Perkins, bmw, Mack, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Kubota, Rolls Royce, Styer, VW, Yanmar, and I am sure I missed many- like everything the Russian military runs...
So the hard part is finding a diesel engine that actually uses a timing chain. Think about a gasser engine- up to 9:1 compression ratio they run a single timing chain. Then 9.5 or 10:1 they had to run double rollers. So a gm 6.5 has double rollers and over 21:1. And the chain is allowed 1” stretch as ok?!?! It is simple- GM pinch d pennies because they could get away with it.
Find 2 people that can show a damaged camshaft. Heck- one of the reasons really high beefed engines go with gear drive in gasser world is to get away from chain slap. On and off throttle on a diesel? Never haha. Let’s see pictures of those cams, lifters, etc.
The people that swear the timing chain being replaced with gear drive caused crank issues that I found- had cracked main webs and had close to and over 200,000 miles on Factory harmonic balancer. In the fleet where we had tons of the 6.5 putting on over 100,000 miles per year: we learned that 100,000 miles is the time to replace the balancer. Doing just that we eliminated broken cranks and main webs- completely eliminated.
So feel free to run what ya want, obviously. But I try to dispell misinfo when I can.
And btw- have you tracked back the folks against all gears and noticed the leader of the pack sold timing chain sets and was declined being able to sell the dsg sets? Yeah...
There was rumors the fast truck the one guy had was with a chain with over 200,000 miles on it... yeah, I call BS - who builds a race engine doing all the ceramic coatings, block filler, and oh yeah- was supposed to push the 5,000 rpm limits with custom everything tbey could do at the time but purposely used a stretched out chain with over 200,000 miles rather than installing one of the brand ones he sells to people - c’mon man!
So I waited patiently, for a couple years until sets were available again and bought a set for myself shortly after they became available.
For now, if you are going to swap your old chain set out- buy a good set, not cheap set.
imo the price is worth it. But check the slack. iirc 0.8” is max allowed but if you have 0.4” or less, the leave it.
I also recommend everyone does a new front seal while there, and ds4 folks get a new Delco cps in there while it is easy to reach.
Why are you anywhere near the chain just swapping the IP? It's a good idea to change it anytime after 30K miles if you are there. Regardless the IP gear bolts come out through the oil fill and you bar the engine over for the next bolt. No need to pull off the entire front of the engine.
