The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

Andy (White.Lightning) came over this morning, and we quickly pulled the head. Just as I suspected, the ringland let go on #7 at the 10'oclock position. Good news is the head looks absolutely fine. The block isn't cracked, but you can feel some light scratches in the bore of the cylinder wall. I'm not sure how bad yet, but we'll see if it can be cleaned up with a honing to 3.905".

Here's the combustion chamber:


...and there she blows....


A little j-b weld and it'll be alright I'm thinking...



The cylinder walls don't look too bad, but you can feel a slight imperfection in the wall from where the ring was fluttering.




So, as of now, we're going to flip the car around, then it's time to start tearing everything off the motor to get it ready to come out.

I'm hoping the block is good enough to just do a cleanup and rebuild with a set of forged pistons and rods. Time will tell.

hellbents10

iTrader: (10)

Make sure to run coolant to the back ports on the heads this time.

SPRAYED 01

iTrader: (22)

I think you will be fine on the block. Get a new or good used stock crank though. They are super cheap and its good insurance. When you detonate like that it puts alot of stress on the crank. You could get it cleaned up and run it but for $150ish why not get a new/good used one.

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

Good suggestion on the new crank, and there will definitely be coolant flowing out of the rear of the heads next time. Not sure that would have saved me, but it's good insurance.

WS6sleeper

iTrader: (1)

I just want to get educated: Why wasn't there coolant at the rear of the heads? Is this a problem on stock heads (02 ls1) as well?

Good luck with the rebuild man. I've been watching your recent threads and hope to learn a thing or two. I'm in the same boat, just want a reliable street car making big hp. Although, it's tempting to just boost the stock motor I plan to just do forged pistons and rods and keep the rest of the longblock stock. I want to avoid damaging anything and upgrade the main weakpoints that boost breaks in the stock engine.

JaYZeig

iTrader: (11)

he may have the rear coolant ports blocked off..thats one thing im glad i did when i swapped my lq4, was swpped the ls1 coolant pipe that ties the 4 corners together.

Ryans99ls1

iTrader: (16)

glad to see the head came out ok

SSZ

The pipe that goes between the two heads????? I have a 5.3 with a pipe connecting the front heads but have the rears plugged. Should there be a pipe there too? Good luck with the build. Glad it wasnt worse.

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

Looking at it, I don't know why GM ever went to block steam vents in the rear of the heads. I think it was a major reason why I had heat related issues back there.

Granted, when you make a lot of power, and the tight factory ring gaps end up causing the compression ring to bind, there's not much the stock piston is going to be able to handle. But heat is a major reason why the rings expand and bind (at least that's what I've read).

Soooo on the new build, all four steam ports will be connected and go back to the radiator just like the factory 98-2000's had them.

JaYZeig

iTrader: (11)

yes, thats a junk design and i recommend you run steam pipes on all 4 ports instead of the front two. this way your allowing more cooler coolant flow to more parts of the engine instead of just the front.

JaYZeig

iTrader: (11)

this is the pipe setup you want, or somthing similar just to vent the rear sides of the head.

enigmah

iTrader: (1)

I bet this is exactly what happened to my motor and i only have 35k on it!!! Time will tell.. ill only know when I get it pulled out sometime at the end of this month.

Im planning on doing a FI setup with stock cubes. Keep us updated with what you replace parts with because ill end up doing the same thing most likely so I don't have to pull the motor again.

FAST LS1

iTrader: (2)

Will that fit under an LS6 intake?

JaYZeig

iTrader: (11)

i run that pipe setup on my ls6 intake setup..theres a thread around here about doing it..youll havta chip/cut/chizel (or however you wanna do it) the ribs on the bottom of the intake off so the pipe will clear the manifold.

ddnspider

iTrader: (26)

OP.....looks like it could have been much worse, I'm sure it'll be back up and running soon enough.

To others, my last thread I made talks about the rear steam vent ports and options.

LT1PWRD

iTrader: (2)

If you replace the rods and pistons and use the stock crank, you'll have it rebalanced right?
I read alot of guys doing this and its great but no one seems to mention a rebal. Some guys don't know that this needs to be done. Also, I never hear anybody mention gapless second rings, how many of you guys use them?

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

Yes, I plan to have the motor rebalanced with the new rods/pistons. As for the rings, I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do. I need to talk to some of the 'experts' as to what I should do.

SPRAYED 01

iTrader: (22)

The reason gm did it is because they didn't build the engine with 650hp. At 350 hp from the factory those steam vents don't do anything. I melted 2 forged motors on cly 7 not running steam vents on 93 octane at the track.

LT1PWRD

iTrader: (2)

Ok good, seems like guys start runnin into trouble with stock gaps beyond 5-600 rwhp. Did you see the Hot Rod Mag article? They got 1200hp from a 4.8! Tune, ring gap, heads, cam, springs-- amazing !

AutomagicLS1

iTrader: (18)

I cracked #7 a few months ago and I as well didn't have the rears hooked up....Had the block sleeved and it's good as new. I got lucky and didn't hurt the piston.
I just got another coolant crossover tube and put it on the back of the heads, ran a line under the intake and T'd into the front crossover tube that goes to the water pump



Sleeved