Cloyes vs Rollmaster vs COMP Timing Sets — Which One Your Engine Can Actually Use

TL;DR: These three brands look like three price tiers of the same part, and they are not. Counted off our own shelf, Cloyes appears on every one of the 17 engine platforms we stock timing components for. Rollmaster appears on 6. COMP appears on 7. All three only meet head-to-head on five pushrod families — small-block Chevy, LS Gen III, LS Gen IV non-VVT, Ford Windsor, and Ford FE. If you drive anything with variable cam timing, an overhead cam, or a diesel, the brand question is already answered for you. On the five platforms where you do get a real choice, the deciding factor is whether you need to move cam timing, and how you want to move it.

The three catalogs, side by side

Every count below comes from our own timing listings, not from marketing copy. What a brand chooses to stock says more about it than what it claims to be good at.

Two conclusions fall straight out of that table.

Cloyes is the coverage brand. It is the only one of the three that shows up on the awkward stuff: the 4.2 Atlas straight-six, the 6.8L V10 Triton, the 6.0L Powerstroke, the Gen III Hemi, and every VVT platform. It is also the only one selling complete jobs — the Hemi master bundle carries the primary chain, secondary chain, tensioners, phaser and guides in one box, and the 4.6/5.4 3V kits pair the phasers with the chains instead of making you source them separately. On those platforms Cloyes is not the best of three options. It is the option.

Rollmaster and COMP are pushrod specialists pointed at the same customer from different directions. Neither one lists a single overhead-cam or VVT part on our shelf. Both exist to do one job — put a stout, adjustable roller chain on a V8 that has a camshaft in the block — and they disagree about how you should adjust it.

Where you actually get a choice

Grouping our timing listings by engine family, only five families carry all three brands:

Four more families carry two of the three (Gen II LT1 and Gen V LT get Cloyes and COMP; Vortec 4.3 V6 gets Cloyes and Rollmaster). The remaining eight are Cloyes-only.

So before you compare anything, filter timing components by your engine. On more than half the platforms we stock, the comparison ends there.

True roller, double roller, single roller — what the words mean

This is where most of the money goes, and the terms get used loosely enough to be actively misleading.

The factory chain on most older pushrod V8s is a "silent" or link-belt chain running on a cam sprocket with nylon teeth moulded over an aluminium hub. It is quiet, it is cheap, and it is the single most common reason an otherwise healthy small-block ends up on a stand. The nylon gets brittle with heat and age, teeth break off, and the pieces go where everything in the valley goes — down to the oil pump pickup screen. A chain that jumped a tooth is an inconvenience. A pickup screen packed with nylon is a set of bearings and a rebuild.

A "true roller" chain has actual rollers turning on bushings and pins, running on steel sprockets. That is the real distinction — true roller versus link-belt — and it is the upgrade that matters most.

"Double roller" means two rows of rollers side by side, on a wider sprocket. More contact area, more load capacity, and more resistance to wear at the pin-and-bushing interface. Worth knowing: chains do not "stretch" in the sense of the steel getting longer. What you measure as slack is wear at every pin/bushing joint, multiplied by the number of joints. A double row spreads the same load over twice as many bearing surfaces, which is why a double roller holds its timing longer rather than merely being stronger.

Single roller is still a true roller — one row. Some OE-spec replacements use it, and on a stock rebuild that never sees 5,500 RPM it is a perfectly honest part.

One clearance caution: a double-roller set is physically wider than what left the factory, and on some blocks and timing covers it needs a test-fit before final assembly. Check the cover, the oil slinger and the cam thrust surface with the set installed and the crank turned two full revolutions before you seal anything. Order your timing cover gasket set at the same time as the chain — you are going to be in there twice if you do not.

Adjustable sets: Hex-A-Just vs multi-keyway

Both approaches let you advance or retard the camshaft relative to the crank without a custom-ground cam. They get there very differently, and this is the honest dividing line between Cloyes and the other two.

Pick the multi-keyway set if you want a known number. You are choosing "four degrees advanced" off a marked keyway, and next year you will still know exactly what you did. That is the right tool for a street engine where you want a specific, documented offset and then you want to stop thinking about it.

Pick Hex-A-Just if you are dialling in a combination. If you are degreeing a cam anyway, chasing an intake centreline the cam card specifies, and you want to land on it exactly rather than on the nearest keyway, the eccentric gets you there. It rewards a degree wheel and punishes guessing.

And if you are not moving cam timing at all, buy neither. A straight-up non-adjustable true roller set is cheaper, has one fewer thing to install wrong, and is what the overwhelming majority of rebuilds should use. Adjustable is a tool for people with a reason.

What advancing and retarding actually does

Advancing the cam (moving the intake centreline earlier) closes the intake valve sooner, raises cylinder pressure at low RPM, and moves the torque peak down. Retarding does the opposite and shifts the power band up. Four degrees is a meaningful change; it is not a substitute for the right camshaft. If your power band is in the wrong place by more than a little, the fix is in camshafts, not in the timing set.

Two hard cautions when you advance:

1. Advancing brings the intake valve closer to the piston. On any engine with a healthy lift and duration package, clay-check piston-to-valve clearance at the advanced setting, not at straight-up.
2. Verify with a degree wheel, not with the dot marks. The dots are an assembly convenience, not a measurement.

The VVT platforms, where the question changes shape

On LS Gen IV VVT, Gen III Hemi, and the Ford 3V engines, cam timing is not a keyway — it is a hydraulically actuated phaser that the ECU commands. That changes the shopping problem completely, and it explains the coverage gap in the table at the top.

Cloyes sells you the system. The VVT kits and the Hemi master bundle include the phaser, the tensioners and the guides, because on those engines the chain is rarely what failed on its own. A phaser with worn lock pins, a collapsed tensioner and a grooved guide are the usual set, and replacing the chain alone puts a new chain against three worn parts.

COMP's entry on LS Gen IV VVT is a delete set. It locks the cam in a fixed position so the engine can run a conventional non-VVT camshaft. That is a legitimate engineering choice for an off-road or competition build, and it is a legal decision as well as a mechanical one — a VVT delete alters an emissions-related system on a road vehicle, and it typically requires a matching tune before the engine will run without setting codes. We flag those SKUs for what they are. If you are building a street truck, the LS Gen IV parts collection has the phaser-retaining path too, and it is the one that keeps the truck legal.

Rollmaster does not play here at all. That is not a knock; it is a company that builds billet roller sets for cam-in-block engines and has not chased the phaser market.

Choosing in sixty seconds

1. Look up your engine first. Nine of our seventeen platforms carry only one of these three brands. Start at timing components filtered by engine family and see whether you have a decision to make at all.
2. Stock rebuild, no cam change? A true roller set, single or double row, non-adjustable. Any of the three on your platform will do the job.
3. New camshaft going in? Buy the timing set with the cam, not after it — see the cam stage kits that bundle them. Degree the cam.
4. Want a specific, documented cam offset? Multi-keyway.
5. Dialling in a combination against a cam card? Hex-A-Just.
6. VVT, overhead cam, or diesel? Cloyes, and buy the complete kit with the tensioners and guides.
7. Whatever you buy, replace the timing cover seal and gasket, and inspect the oil pump if the old cam sprocket had nylon teeth.

How to install a timing set correctly

Time: 3–6 hours on a pushrod V8 in the chassis. Tools: degree wheel, dial indicator with a magnetic base, positive stop, torque wrench, harmonic balancer puller and installer.

1. Bring the engine to TDC on the compression stroke of cylinder one and mark the balancer against a fixed pointer before anything comes apart.
2. Remove the balancer, timing cover, and old chain. Keep the cover — you will be inspecting the seal surface for a groove worn by the old balancer hub.
3. Inspect the debris. If the old cam sprocket was nylon-toothed and teeth are missing, drop the pan and clean the pickup screen. Skipping this is the expensive mistake.
4. Check the new sprockets against the old ones for tooth count and offset, and test-fit the crank sprocket before you press it home.
5. Install the cam sprocket dry, snug, and aligned to the timing marks as a starting point only.
6. Degree the cam. Find true TDC with a positive stop, then measure the intake centreline against the cam card. Adjust the keyway or the eccentric until you are on the number you intend to run.
7. Clay-check piston-to-valve clearance at the final setting if the cam is anything other than mild.
8. Torque the cam bolt to spec, install the thrust plate or button where the engine uses one, and turn the engine over two full revolutions by hand before the cover goes on.
9. Seal and reassemble with a new cover gasket and front seal. Re-verify the balancer mark against the pointer.

FAQ

How do I know my timing chain is worn out?

The classic test is rotational slack: with the distributor cap off (or a cam-position reading on a modern engine), rotate the crank one way until the rotor moves, mark it, then rotate the other way until it moves again. More than a few degrees of crank rotation before the cam responds means wear. Symptoms that get people looking include a rattle on cold start-up that fades, timing that will not hold a setting, cam-and-crank correlation codes on an electronically timed engine, and on the worst cases a slap from the cover at idle.

Is a double roller always better than a single roller?

For a stock rebuild that never sees high RPM, no — a good single-row true roller is entirely adequate and it is what many OE-spec kits use. The double row earns its money on engines with stiff valve springs, high RPM, or a long service expectation. What is always worth upgrading is away from a nylon-toothed link-belt sprocket, whichever roller you land on.

Do I need an adjustable timing set?

Only if you have a reason to move cam timing — a cam card that calls for an offset, a compression or quench change you are compensating for, or a dyno session. If you have no number in mind, a non-adjustable true roller set is one fewer variable and one fewer chance to install something four degrees off by accident.

Can I reuse my old cam sprocket bolts?

Replace them. Cam bolts on many engines are torque-to-yield or are supplied with a specific thread locker from the factory, and a cam bolt that backs out takes the front of the engine with it. Follow the manufacturer's torque figure for your specific engine, not a generic number.

Does a new timing set change how much power my engine makes?

By itself, almost nothing. What it changes is whether your engine holds the timing you set. A worn chain retards cam timing progressively as it wears, so a fresh set often feels like it added power because it restored timing the engine had quietly been losing for years. Real gains come from the camshaft; the timing set is what lets the camshaft do what it was ground to do.

Why does Cloyes cover engines the other two do not?

Because Cloyes supplies a lot of OE and OE-replacement timing product, which puts it on modern overhead-cam and VVT engines as a matter of course. Rollmaster and COMP came at this from the performance side of cam-in-block V8s and have stayed there. Neither position is better — it just means that on a 5.4 3V or a 6.0 Powerstroke, there is one brand on the shelf, and on a small-block Chevy there are three.

Related reading

• 4.2 Atlas Timing Chain Rattle — Diagnosis and Fix
• 5.4L 3V Cam Phaser Diagnosis
• LS Cam Brand Comparison — Which Grind and Why
• SBC Flat Tappet Cam Failure — Causes and Prevention
• Hemi Tick Diagnosis
• Hastings vs Total Seal vs Mahle Piston Rings