How often does a stock LS1 oil pump fail?
If its a 98 or 99 they can fail anytime. They changed designs in late 99 or early 00, but with any miles on the motor you may want to think about having it changed as insurance. Some will fail and some may not, but it is a small price compared to a $3000+ rebuild 
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TECH Enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 553
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From: Dallas TX
Originally Posted by TransAm98
Original oil pump w/119000 mi. Pressure is still the same as it was five years ago. Guess I'm lucky.
Back in 98-99 we heard a lot of stories on the net about spun bearings and failed oil pumps. 2000 still a few stories. I haven't heard any in a few years now.
My theory is that many of the failures were caused by low oil levels - and after people became aware that some of these LS1s use oil and started watching levels a little closer, (and running 6 quarts rather than the 5.5 called for by the owners manual) there weren't nearly as many spun bearing and failed oil pump problems.
In the mean time, I have 107,000 miles on a 99, and it shows the same oil pressure it did when it was new. It is a late production (May 99) car, so perhaps I have the "updated" oil pump mentioned above.
Sure, it's nice to replace it if you're going into the motor, but don't take the thing apart for the sole reason of replacing your oil pump.
TECH Fanatic
Joined: Mar 2002
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From: Your Reality Check Bounced...
you're absolutely correct...while the newer pumps pump a bit more pressure and volume there's nothing wrong w/the old pumps...most people would uncover the pickup and BOOM spun bearings....I've got 110,000 and keep 6qts in the car at all time of my lovely Royal Purple... :-D
got a new motor under warranty hehe Now someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but GM used a different pump in the fbody platform than the one in the trucks 4.8, 5.3 etc. GM admitted this and was replacing oil pumps if oil pressure fluctutions were reported and were duped at the dealership. They have since moved to the design that they were using in the pickup platform. I believe the only difference was the valving. Something about the spring or mechanism was different. I was lucky and ran mine till 64K when I missed a 3 tot 4 shift and bent valves and destroyed my PR's. I rebuilt and replaced the pump by default. I'm sure some spun bearings were caused by low oil but GM admitted that there was a problem and fixed it sometime starting in 2000.
Originally Posted by y2k_ta
Now I feel like I'm driving a ticking time bomb....
All I know is after the oil pump issues in early days right after I got my car...I got so I looked at the oil pressure way more often than before...and still do...even in other cars... The reason I originally asked this question was because I plan to put some heads and cam on my '98 SS this winter but after reading the instuctions on doing a cam swap, it looks like a huge job tearing the front of the engine down. I thought I would go with SLP rocker arms to make up for the cam. Does anyone think this would be a good idea or do you think I should go with a cam? Is swaping a cam as hard as it sounds? I talked with people and they said it wasn't very hard to do the cam swap. The reason I thought about putting the SLP rocker arms in my car was because there is a local performance shop local to me that was able to get 424 rwhp on an '03 ZO6 with the SLP rocker arms and RGR stage 2 heads. I don't know if there would be a huge difference in the power if I did this to my LS1 being that this performance shop put this combo on an LS6 but 424 rwhp will blow a stock ZO6 and "03 Cobra away.
Teching In
Joined: May 2022
Posts: 2
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Ls1 oil pump They don’t break the main valve gets stuck a good oil flush will normally fix this but if it doesn’t it might need a new cam including the new oil pump because failure causes the cam end to wear dramatically
