Is a true roller chain suppose to have a little slack in it ?

302efi

Member
Mar 16, 2003
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Sunny Florida
I'm doing a cam swap for a friend and he has a Ture roller timing set on the car. He has had it on there for about 1000 miles or so.Today when I when to put the timing chain back on the car I noticed that it has a little slack in it ???

This is a quote from a website: "The roller chains are lightweight for lower operating tension and less wear"

Should the chain have some slack in it ???
 
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After 1000 miles ? I know that the True roller sets are pretty expensive, so I was thinking that it wouldnt stretch that fast ? So I guess the true rollers are built with a little more slack in them as opposed to a double or single roller so the the true roller can have lower operating tension ?
 
302efi said:
After 1000 miles ? I know that the True roller sets are pretty expensive, so I was thinking that it wouldnt stretch that fast ? So I guess the true rollers are built with a little more slack in them as opposed to a double or single roller so the the true roller can have lower operating tension ?

They'll stretch the most during the first heat cycle of the engine and then level off. When you install them they're tight but as the engine heats up, things expand and the chain has to stretch a bit. If it was possible to check it when the engine is hot you probably wouldn't see quite as much slack but there has to be some unfortunately.
 
hmm think I bought one from pepboys and the other from strauss discount auto. If you still can't find them checkout ebay, type in chilton mustang and you'll see them for like anywhere from 3-12 bux Basically if you have more than 1/2" of deflection in the chain than you need to replace it.