Well I thought I had a lifter tapping on my 99 Camaro SS, so I bought a cam kit and was planning on that being the fix to the sound I was hearing coming from my motor. Now after doing some reading on the net it seems that I was wrong and I may actually have piston slap and not lifter tap. I bought the car with the intention of having fun at my local 1/4 mile track. I would hate to install the cam kit and the motor come apart on me.

The cam kit is a Comp Cam, 232/234 duration, .595"/.598" lift.

My question is this: Do piston slap motors have any history of committing suicide under regular thrashings? Or is it OK to proceed as normal?

 

any one?

 

Considering these engines slapped at the dealer when new, I'm sure you will be fine (given you don't have a ton of miles). If you have a bunch of miles and have time and the money, a rebuild wouldn't hurt.

 

My car slaps pretty bad when cold. I wait until it's warmed up before I drive it. 131k miles and put down 643 rwhp last weekend.

 

yea i had read in another thread about the ls1 motors having piston slap when the motor is cold...... and the noise coming from his motor I not that loud, you can barley hear it and when it warms up the noise goes away

 

99% percent of the motors people say have "piston slap" don't. I have had numerous people tell me that mine had it. Just noisy valvetrain.

 

I dont know what you what to call it or what it is but mine has a cold starts tap/click/knock untill it warms up and its gone. The car has 70k miles on it and i've had it for 2+yrs. It made the same noise from day one.
Even had a 150 shot on it for a year with 4 bottles ran on it. Still runs strong.

 

Thanks for your responses. It is very unsettling to have this constant dull knock under the hood. I'm going to go ahead and install the cam kit. Actually, I'm also putting on Hooker headers and yanking that 6 speed out and putting a TH 350 with 3200 stall too.

 

I just turned 18k miles and my motor is noisy too. So is the motor in my brother's 03 Silverado. His has 200k+ miles. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

my 01 T/A soundslike a diesel when its cold in the mornings, goes away after it warms up. I herd it is worse on the newer LS1s. I only have 54k on it but my dad's 6.0 truck does it too.