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I purchased an LS2 longblock a while back and today I decided to bust out the endoscope to look at the piston heads.
All pistons looked okay except for piston #1. There is a zigzag of somewhat deep looking scratches.
Question is, would this be okay to run? What would have caused this? I will be putting this engine together soon with new parts (water pump, oil pump, 228r cam, pushrods..etc) but I'm now worried if it's okay to run. Time is a bit tight right now so I'm curious if it needs a rebuild or if its okay to run it like it is.
Sorry for the bad lighting and blurriness. The endoscope camera isn't all that great.
Looks kinda like the seller put something down the plug hole and scrapped the piston. I’d pull the head depending on the warranty you got
You know that is possible.All the other piston heads are black with carbon soot. This is the only one where it looks like the carbon scraped off. But then again, that could have also been caused by what scratched the piston head.
Unfortunately there is no warranty. I bought this longblock off of ebay years ago.
I'm not sure that what you see did any structural damage to the piston. As was said, it looks like something was dragged across the top of the piston somewhat lightly, as opposed to heavily.
Since the engine is not installed, it would be easy to pull that head for a closer look, but I'm not sure that is even necessary.
I would run it as is.
I'm not sure that what you see did any structural damage to the piston. As was said, it looks like something was dragged across the top of the piston somewhat lightly, as opposed to heavily.
Since the engine is not installed, it would be easy to pull that head for a closer look, but I'm not sure that is even necessary.
I would run it as is.
Yeah you may be on to something. I definitely don't want to take the heads off because I'll then have to buy new head studs and headgaskets. I'm kind of on a budget unfortunately.
think I'll just go ahead and buildup the long block to be a complete engine with accessories,intake, sensors....etc and install it into the chassis. Then I will see how it runs. It's got 115k miles on the long block, here's hoping it will run okay
I am wondering if they were doing something on motor and wanted to make sure the piston was at the top of its bore so they stuck a screw driver in there - like if you were going to change or check a valve spring and did not have any compressed air so you just put piston at top of bore as a backup.
I am wondering if they were doing something on motor and wanted to make sure the piston was at the top of its bore so they stuck a screw driver in there - like if you were going to change or check a valve spring and did not have any compressed air so you just put piston at top of bore as a backup.
I could totally see that happening.
I decided on taking the heads off soon and replacing the lifters. I feel like that is needed insurance to make sure this higher mileage engine will last for a long time. I'll update the post if I see any real damage. Now deciding what lifters to get. Looks like ls7's are sold out everywhere....
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LS2 Piston #1 Scratch? 
