This is something that has had me wondering for a while.

I remember going to the junk yard a few times looking for an LS1 engine. The car i wanted the engine for is most probably not familiar to you folks in the US. Its a Commodore VZ SS, basically a four door version of the GTO made by Holden, a subsidiary of GM in Australia.
Holden produced Commodores with the LS1 engine from 1999-2005 (the VZ was the last Commodore with the LS1 engine, which stopped in 2005).

Now when you go to the junk yard here looking for an engine, you don't ask for the engine by the engine's name like..."i'm looking for an LS1 engine", but rather by which car the engine came in, like..."i'm looking for a 2004 GTO engine". That's cz the guys at the junk yard got no idea what LS1 is.

So in my case, when i go ask for a 2005 Commodore V8 engine (Commodores also come in V6), which is the LS1, and the junk yard doesn't have an LS1 engine off a 2005 Commodore, he will either...

a) sell me an LS1 engine off a 1999 Commodore, and i would have no way of knowing which year commodore the engine is from if it has been removed from the car...or...
b) he will say that he doesn't have the engine off a 2005 Commodore but he has the engine off a 1999 (or 2000 or 2001) Commodore and that i could take that because it is the same exact engine.

What i would like to know is...is it?!? Is it the same exact engine?? By that i mean...same exact internals???

Did all the LS1 engines ever made and put in production cars by GM come with the same exact internals AND heads??

 

No. There were differences in pistons and rods. Some LS1 engines actually had an LS6 block. Later pistons had a skirt coating and IIRC even had floating pins rather than the more common press fit.

 

There were different rod bolts and oil pumps as well.

 

Different intake manifolds 'LS1v LS6' different cams, different heads

 

This link may help


https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...ng-my-ls1.html

 

i believe the piston coating changed in 2002 on the ls1 pistons