Let's play "Name those chunks stuck to the drain plug"
 

So today I was doing an oil change on my truck (LQ4 engine) and these little gems were stuck to the drain plug. Can anyone guess what they are? They almost have the thickness of a piston ring. I took the best pictures I could for now with my oily hands. Tell me what you guys think the pieces are. I circled around the pieces on paper that are magnetic. Dont' mind the oil smudges on the white paper. The truck still seems to run fine along with the fact it seems as though I've had a little lifter noise when I'd let the truck sit for more than a few days at a time. My internal mod list is as follows:

• Stock LQ4 shortblock
• LS7 lifters
• Flowtech Induction cam from Ed Curtis (ground by comp)
• Flowtech 7.350 pushrods
• 243 heads with Patriot Dual Valve springs

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0612.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0611.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0609.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0608.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0607.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0606.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0603.jpg

piston ring for sure

How can it be a piston ring IF the piston doesn't come down far enough in the bore to expose a ring?

Ok guys, sorry to be a picture whore on this BUT I just thought of something. After I have managed to calm my self down a bit I got to thinking. I remember about a year and a half ago when I did my last cam swap, I also replaced the timing chain/sprockets. When I installed the new crank sprocket, I used my old one to knock the new crank sprocket into place with my big hammer. While doing this, the hammer slipped and struck the teeth on the old sprocket causing it to shatter. I never did find the pieces after that happened. I can't remember if I had rags jammed in the pan or not while doing this. I did however save the sprocket for whatever reason and pulled it out for comparison. Do the metal bits I found, look like they would be from the sprocket that cracked? The oil looks clean that came out of the truck and doesn't have any glitter or sheen to it. Also, I have a hard time believing the truck would run as good as it does if I had a cracked piston where it lost a piece of ring material. Here's my old sprocket that broke compared to the pieces I found. Do you guys think this is where the pieces came from?

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0619.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0618.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0617.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0616.jpg

I recommend getting a used oil analysis:
http://www.blackstone-labs.com/

Hopefully all the pieces were either too big to really be absorbed by the main bearings, or too small to matter.

The one looks like part of a roller bearing from the rockers you see them all the time in the pan. I just had a roller lifter come apart and the chuncks you have look like the same stuff that was in my oil pan... do you know the history of the engine since new it may be old battle wounds left in the pan

Looks possibly like piston skirt or part of the lifter roller end...
Just was exactly the same chunks in a buddies engine...

dig in before it gets any further...
easier to pull the heads and inspect lifters than to buy a new engine

Yeah I helped pull my motor even. It came out of an express van that had 5k miles on it when it hit a tree front on. I watched and was there when the motor was extracted. It went from the wrecked truck right into the back of my pickup. It has a total of about 20K miles on it now

The engine sounds normal when running. Typical valvetrain thrashing noise of any lsx motor. Nothing out of rhythm or that seems out of the norm. When I got the motor from the wrecker, I just put 243's on with new LS7 lifters, and ls1 lifter trays. I never touched another bolt.

I would just make sure there isn't a situation where it is going to hold together for a little while, and then let go catastrophically.

I wolud bet a piece of a piston....Looks like when I blew # 7 and never knew it til the heads were pulled....

Can't be piston if it's magnetic.

ferrous or non ferrous metal? Leakdown and oil analysis.

LMAO, metallic yes MAGNETIC no. Unless it's a ring.

The grain /color seem to match the sproket, hopefully thats it, but I'd be tearing it down anyway.....

Looks like a rocker needle bearing and some of the other chunks from the sprocket. You could do an oil analysis like said above and a compression test and rocker inspection for peace of mind if you're worried about it. I say pretend you never saw it and drive like hell.

You caught me in my typo before I did, lol.

Notice the concentric circles on this piece. I would think this piece could be positively identified.

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...j/IMG_0608.jpg

Some of those pieces look like they could have come off the old sprocket ...

In the 4th picture down, where youre holding the curved piece, that sorta looks like a chunk off the end of a lifter to me too.

Hope you didnt hurt it too bad whatever it turns out to be.

I'm going to do a compression test tomorrow and if time allows I'll peek at the rockers and carefully examine the top end. I would think that if the one piece was a chunk of the lifter cup, wouldn't the lifter lose its prime and never pump up? It's weird because the truck almost runs too well to have anything wrong with it. Would you guys say if the compression test come back good and the rockers/springs/valve train look good north of the lifters that it'd be safe to drive? I can tell you if I have to go through all the labor of yanking the heads, I'm going to be putting something other than the 243's back on that're on there.

Sounds like the biggest concern is the lifters. Can't inspect those without disassembly. You might take a chance and get away with it, but is it worth the possible price if you don't get lucky? I'd be seriously trying to put a positive ID on that one distinguishable piece I copied the pic of.

Looks like part of the sprocket. I wouldnt tear it down.