The main thing that contributes to distributor drive gear wear in these engines, and any other engine as well is excessive cam walk. Many people that have built these engines have never even checked that to see what it is when they are putting the engine together because they either don't know to check it or know how too, its just a part of engine blueprinting. It should never be more than the crank end play. A high volume pump has very little to do with it. If you or anyone has experienced failure from using a high volume pump, your problem was something other than the pump. What is going to happen if you have too much pinion backlash in a rear end? Headrick built several hundred of these engines for racers, other enthusiasts and Cotton and himself, this was never an issue for him.
