If you bought a bike with gear driven cams in how would you know the pinion shaft run ? And if it was riding ok you wouldnt care ? so if the bike had double the pinion run out that s&s recomend for gear driven but still ran ok and had done so for 4000 miles with no damage to oil pump or gears wheres the problem ?

 

Being a machinist, I would want that runout as little as possible. Eventually, that much runout is gonna cause problems. Installing gear driven cams is to remove as much deviation as possible to ensure the accuracy of timing events as well as remove the wear factor of the chain tensioners. If you end up replacing the gears at 20,000 miles because of excessive runout instead of the chain tensioners, what have you gained? A well set-up gear set should run trouble free basically for as long as you own the bike. I also imagine those gears are noisy as all get out as well.

 

So its not going to blow and i might get a few seasons out of the bike thanks for the reply