I'm pretty sure one of my valve's (#7 cylinder) smashed into my piston. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="gr_images/icons/mad.gif" /> I took a scope and looked down the spark plug hole and seen a huge indention on the top of the piston. What all could be screwed up (worst and best case)? What other modifications should I make while im in the engine (performance and reliability)? About how much do you think it will cost taking it into a repair shop vs. doing it myself? Thanks for the help!
If any of you guys know any good auto shops in Tampa that know there way around an LS1 please let me know!!

 

Well, w/o details, hard to know why. Stock valvetrain/stock cam? Valve float is the obvious answer, the question is why did it happen. If it's just an over-rev, the piston is -probably- fine. At minimum, I would pull that head, replace the valve/spring/maybe pushrod.
If NOT stock cam/valvetrain, need to check the whole valvetrain geometry to insure against future probs.
The stock valvetrain is pretty darn good, but when you max it out, something will give sooner or later.

 

Friend of mine overrevved his motor, and got valve marks on his pistons, well he had it on all the pistons, and he bent a couple valves, but anyway when his engine builder took his block apart, he measure the rods and some of them were stretched because of this. SO if you did anything near to the level he did. You may have toasted the shortblock.

Without seeing its hard to tell though.

 

She's Stock!! I was doing about 85 on the freeway and my SES light started flashing and that was it. I wasn't racing or driving hard that day, it came from nowhere. The compression test showed no compression on number 7, autozone could not read my computer (they said it was dead), and there was some fuel in the oil. Could computer failure contribute to floating a valve??

 

nope computer can't cause you to float a valve, dunno what could cause that, sounds like something that happened in the past.

<small>[ April 22, 2003, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: TreeGreenZ ]</small>

 

Pull the heads, get a valve job, roll the pushrods carefully on a mirror and check for flatness. Might as well toss in a cam and spring set now if you planned on upgrading. Also the pistons might be damaged, maybe someone here has a way of checking them without droping the pan. Could have been caused by a broken spring too. Good luck.

<small>[ April 22, 2003, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: DaleMX ]</small>