Joel's LS1 FC parts list/swap thread (remixed)

[frijolee]

Thanks for the chatter gents.  Car seemed to run nice on the new fuel wiring.  Finished pics for completeness...








Sunday's autocross was crazy rain...  The grooves on my NT01s are going away so driving home was interesting.  Any kind of standing water and I'd start to hydroplane if I got near 50 mph.  That meant I did most of the drive home between 45 and 48 and even then I'd feel it occasionally.  Since NT01s are designed to wear out the grooves (and have separate drill marks for actual life), I'm curious what this'll do when the grooves are gone.  To me honest I'm half tempted to buy a tire groover and just deepen all my grooves by 1/8" or so.

Terrible idea?

Mcleod RXT, aluminum fly and Magnum F are paid for and should be headed my way shortly.

[frijolee]

I managed to hurt my engine at last month's autocross.   It was a fun run at the end of the day and I was flat out with fairly high RPMs across the finish line when I heard the exhaust note change.

Packed up to go home, made it about a mile or two out of the track before I decided the exhaust note wasn't just off but sounded ragged. Pulled over, popped the hood, heard a fair loud/harsh ticking sound, and parked it to tow it home.  Glad I did...  The last time I heard a loud ticking noise I ended up with a coffee table sometime thereafter.




So nasty engine tick, what are my possibilities?  What I've come up with so far...
-Rod bearing
-Piston wrist pin
-Dropped valve
-Broken valve spring
-Bent pushrod
-Collapsed lifters

Possible diagnosis approaches
-Boroscope down spark plug holes
-Check spark plugs
-Compression check
-Top engine visual inspection
-Oil inspection: change oil... visual inspection, cut open filter, lab analysis (blackstone)
-Bottom end inspection: poking at at stuff can be done with pan pulled engine in car.  Plastigage and measuring probably means yanking it.

I decided to start on the top end since it was easy and I didn't want to crank it for a compression check if I might have a valvetrain issues.  Valves all look fine but I didn't have to go far before I found 4x collapsed/stuck lifters.  Here's the worst one (albeit it stuck this far open after I'd turned the motor over by hand a few times.)




My big question is whether the lifters were the cause or just a symptom of something else.   These are Comp Cams "Comp R" lifters.  Metal flakes in the oil could certainly jam up some lifters as a byproduct.

Reminder on the engine build
Block GM LS2 Darton Dry Sleeve
Lunati 4340 Forged Crankshaft (4.00 stroke)
Lunati Billet Connecting Rods
Jesel 1.7 Shaft Mounted Roller Rocker Arms
MTI Stage 3 Hand Ported 243 Cylinder Heads
Wiseco K395X130 forged pistons (11.25:1 compression, 4.130 bore)
Custom Patrick G camshaft (235/239 .602 / .604” / 113 LSA +2)
GM LS9 timing chain
Manton Custom Pushrods - 11/32nds Intake and Exhaust
Comp R hydraulic lifters
PRC .650 dual valve springs
Melling HV oil pump
ARP everything

I bought the engine private party after it had just been freshened by Erik Koenig and HKE. Only thing I didn't like is that the oil pressure has always been a little on the low side. When warm, it idles at about 18 psi rather than the 24 I'm used to. As such I've been running 20w50. Motor's been in the car for, I don't know, maybe 7-8 years at this point? Oil temps peaked about 225 F at the autocross where this happened.  I have been having some heat management issues so I typically do a cool down and drive for a mile between passes.

So two big questions:
1) Anything obvious I'm missing on my investigative approach?  My engine builder options on an island are near non-existent so I'm kinda on on my own.
2) Anything else I should do in car before I yank the motor?  I'm hesitant to do any sort of cranking compression check at this point give the collapsed lifters.

Thanks in advance,
Joel

[cholmes]

Did you notice whether oil pressure at idle was lower than before?

I certainly think it's worth oil drain / cut open filter and look for metal. If pressure was low and / or any metal in the oil / filter, you're obviously gonna have bearing problems. Probably worth dropping the pan no matter what for a look see.

If everything looks good, and bore scoping the cylinders looks good, maybe you won't have to pull the engine. If the lifters just failed, well that's weird. On the other hand, if some crud has choked off oil flow to a few lifters, you're gonna have to trace that. My business partner's old school Mopar 440 has that very issue right now.

Finally, I've read somewhere that the plastic barbell under the rear engine cover can break and cause weird oiling problems; Improved Racing sells a billet one to solve this. What kind are you using?

[frijolee]

Did you notice whether oil pressure at idle was lower than before?

I certainly think it's worth oil drain / cut open filter and look for metal. If pressure was low and / or any metal in the oil / filter, you're obviously gonna have bearing problems. Probably worth dropping the pan no matter what for a look see.

If everything looks good, and bore scoping the cylinders looks good, maybe you won't have to pull the engine. If the lifters just failed, well that's weird. On the other hand, if some crud has choked off oil flow to a few lifters, you're gonna have to trace that. My business partner's old school Mopar 440 has that very issue right now.

Finally, I've read somewhere that the plastic barbell under the rear engine cover can break and cause weird oiling problems; Improved Racing sells a billet one to solve this. What kind are you using?

Nothing jumped out at me on oil pressure, but neither did I specifically check it after the run.

I was already queuing up for replacement my trans for a magnum-F but if that's gotta come out I might as well yank the whole thing.

Hadn't heard of the plastic barbell issue.  Thanks for that...  Is this the improved racing thing you mentioned?  https://www.improvedracing.com/gm-gen-iii-iv-ls-engine-billet-rear-galley-plug-barbell.html

[cholmes]

Yep, that's the one. I couldn't remember the symptoms of a "bad" plastic one, I thought I'd read about them breaking, but looks like I might be mistaken about that. In any case, apparently the plastic one can let oil (at least some) bypass the filter.

Hydraulic lifters do have VERY small clearances, I guess it's possible unfiltered oil could have gotten to your lifters and messed them up. If you find metal in the oil / oil filter, and some metal bits got past the barbell, it seems plausible that could cause lifter problems. I'm really interested in what you find.

Also interesting is the one review of the Improved Racing barbell: "20 psi before, 45 psi after". Hmmm. Regardless, next time I have the tranny out, I'm gonna put one in my engine, just for piece of mind.

[frijolee]

Well, engine's out but it's been raining too much here for me to crack the trans off and get it on a stand...  In the meantime I've been reading about the Comp R lifters and it's not great.  https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c4-tech-performance/1175257-anyone-else-have-comp-r-lifter-failure.html

Notably, comp changed their literature to note that you have to use these with adjustable preload rockers (which I'm pretty sure I don't have).  Are LS7 lifters still the hot ticket for OEM bits?

More reading...  A lot of guys making references to to Morel, most of these these posts are old.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c5-tech/1538031-ls7-vs-comp-cams-r-lifters-recommendations.html
https://ls1tech.com/forums/generation-iii-internal-engine/367286-best-hydraulic-roller-lifters-6600-rpm.html
https://ls1tech.com/forums/generation-iii-internal-engine/1767326-what-makes-morel-lifters-superior-ls7s-4.html

FWIW Morel 5315 are the drop in version and a nominal step up from LS7s (supposedly).  Morel 5206 are the high end link bar style.
Also reading good things about the Johnson 2110 drop in and 2116LSR.

Oh, but for every opinion someone else thinks something else and here's some contrarian opinions.  This thread has about the most detail I've found...  https://ls1tech.com/forums/generation-iii-internal-engine/1783658-lifter-shootout-lifter-why-everyone-s-opinions-welcome.html

[digitalsolo]

Myself and friends have run GM “LS7” lifters in lots of stuff with good results.    All street/drag stuff though, not autoX/road race, so less time spent in high RPM overall.   Big power but less abusive to lifters than your use case I think.

[shainiac]

+2 for LS7 lifters. I'm sure my cam is much less aggressive than yours, but I've had no issues with LS7 lifters revving to 7200. Be careful to buy genuine lifters from a reputable vendor. There are lots of knockoffs out there.

[akirk92]

Sorry to revive such an old thread! Does anybody know if there's a backup copy of this thread that includes the pictures?  I'm about to dive into hte deep end with my FC, and having those images would be super helpful

[digitalsolo]

Sorry to revive such an old thread! Does anybody know if there's a backup copy of this thread that includes the pictures?  I'm about to dive into hte deep end with my FC, and having those images would be super helpful

We'll have to see what Joel has.  These pictures are mapped to a Google share that is his.  If he's got a new mapping to the same "image names" I can automate updating the thread links.