Has anyone experienced this kind of wear on their distributor gear?
http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc265/oildrop/distgearAugust152009.jpg
http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc265/oildrop/distgear85631August152009.jpg

I've got a 51-413-9 Comp hyd roller cam and 8528 MSD dist.
The recommended bronze gear is 85631, but this wear occured within 5000 miles.

Anyone have an idea of why?
Thanks, Trevor

Bronze gears are sacrificial and not generally for street use.

Yours seems worse than I'd expect though. Have you checked your cam thrust and distributor shaft endplay? Perhaps a slightly bent distributor shaft?

My understanding was the bronze gear had to be updated from the stock steel gear with this cam.
Comp confirms the distributor gear must be "upgraded" with the 51-413-9.
When I called, they confirmed this upgrade was the bronze gear.
http://www.compcams.com/technical/Catalogs/106-07/212-219_233.pdf
(bottom of page 216)

I read somewhere within MSD that the steel gear will not even mesh correctly with this cam.

Here's my "new" (<5000 miles) distributor with a broken reluctor paddle;
http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc265/oildrop/brokenreluctorpaddle.jpg

Get a BOP polymer(sp?) gear.

Do you mean one like this?
http://www.compperformancegroupstores.co...;Category_Code=

I can't find one listed for Pontiac 400s.

Like that, but for Pontiac.
Here you go;

http://butlerperformance.com/index.html

Go to "products", then distributors and accesseries.
Scroll down and you find'm.

This makes sense.
I called COMP again and they confirmed with my steel billet cam (51-413-9) you HAVE to run a bronze gear (or composite material) and not the steel gear.
The tech guy at COMP says that 3000 to 5000 mile life expectancy is normal for these bronze gears which is why a lot of guys go to the composite.
Since I already have another bronze gear, I'm going to run it and monitor the wear / timing very carefully.
I'll order the Butler one and install it later.

... seems like a high maintenance item that shouldn't be.
Especially when we put quite a few miles on our Bird each year.