I see many post about gear cams in place of chain driven cams. Is this change out something you would have the dealer do or can you do it yourself? What would be the cost? Would it be a good idea to upgrade the cams too?

 

With the chain you will have lag as the chain stretches and the tensioners will wear. Gear drive no stretch or tensioners, more reliable and quicker to get the power going . I ad an 88" with s&s 510 gear drives and loved it, about a grand installed at a dealer, to buy the tools and do it yourself was about the same money. Will you use the tools again is a question to ask yourself.

 

The only draw backs to the gear drive are...noise and cost.

More precise valve timing and the correct performance upgrade for a weak system such as used in the twin cams the first 6 or 7 years of manufacture.

My 09 is near stock, I doubt I'll be needing to change the cam drive system anytime soon.

Noise emissions are one of the reasons that H-D didn't use them, sure would have saved them some headaches.
The old generator motors sure have a lot of gear whine from the right side

Mike

 

Noise problem is grossly overstated; put gear driven cams in my '09 Ultra when I did the 103" build and no one ever mentioned cam noise or asked if I had gear driven cams. If I were replacing cams again, I would chose gear driven cams. Only problem is that they cost a little more initially.

 

The question of the hour is what bike you are talking about, if it is an 07, or newer there is no need to worry about what you have.
If you have an 07, or older I would go with the hydro SE setup , because the crank wheels shift, and would eat gears , but not so much with the chain setup.

 

a properly tolerance gear drive will be quiet,but it takes time to mesaure the lash and reorder bigger or smaller gears,so most dont take the time to do it.crank runout(the amount of wobble on the end of the crank) is ussaly or may become to much for gear drives on the 07 and newer bikes,unless u plugg trua and weld the crank.on the 02 gears are great as 02 has a very good crank.03 -06 check the runpout if its in your good for gears if not the newer style hydolic tentioners are the way to go.

 

So does the '07 go either way? I happen to have one and was wondering if it is needed.

 

As far as I know, all of the 07s have hydro tensioners.
I didn't type the right thing in my earlier post, it should be 06, and older to 1999.

 

I have gear drive and in all my Youtube videos, you don't hear any gear noise. I barely hear it, and that's only at stop lights.

 

if you didn't send you crank out for trueing, plug, and weld....I would stay with the chain drive. for gear drive you need an almost perfect crank run out and quite frankly it is highly unlikely you have that.