I have a non roller SBC in my boat right now, I have a roller cam short block coming, I assume the distributor gears are different?? Any info would help.
I know in the Ford world the non roller has a cast gear and roller has a steel gear and has to be changed, I guess the cast gear will eat up the roller cam gear.

same thing is true with chevy

It depends on the cam that you use whether you need a different dist gear.

the cam manafacstuer should tell ya what gear to run....brass steel

If you go with a solid billet core you will normally need a bronze, melonized or Comp composite gear. Crane offers cams with pressed on iron gears so you can use the stock dist gear. Comp has a special core material that allows use of a stock dist gear.

I recently went with a Comp grind and chose a core that allowed the use of a regular gear. It's a PIA to use bronze gears and they are a wear item. I don't want all that crap in my engine.