Hi Guys,
I had a mechanic install Texas Speed 5.3 liter, stage 2.5 heads, and 224 Camshaft. The dumbass mechanic installed the timing chain off one full tooth. The mechanic who fixed it said that puts my camshaft around 15 degrees advanced. The engine runs a lot smoother, but has a lot of valve chatter. Any idea of how bad this screwed up my engine and what should I do to check it out?
I emailed texas speed to find out the tolerances to I can see if anything is loose, and of course check if anything is broken. And I was thinking of a compression test.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Lou

 

Reset the timing chain and be done with it. Don't drive it.

I doubt anything happened seriously unless you were zinging it to 6k+.

Either way, it was a bad move on his part. You're going to get alot of "chatter" with an aftermarket camshaft on these valvetrains, but nothing too excessive. Pop the valvecovers and see what's up.

 

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. The thing I am worried about is I already put 1500 miles on it before the timing chain was corrected. And some of it was driven hard. As soon as you get a new toy you tend to run it a little bit. The valve train noise has gotten worse over those 1500 miles. I wanted to make sure I didn't damage anything else. Is a compression test the best way to see what is going on? And what kind of variances should there be on a compession test?

 

Pop the valve covers and make sure all the rockers are torqued town correctly, they are supposed to be 22lbs/ft.

 

thank you for the help, I will do that. I am assuming that is the torque value for the texas speed set up? Don't different manufactures have different torque values?

 

No, that's the torque value for the stock rockers which you have, that Texas Speed package does not include aftermarket rockers. I've got the same setup as you except i run a larger cam, and i also have alot of valvetrain noise which is pretty normal just like Mike stated. If some of the rockers are loose, unbolt them all one at a time, apply red lock-tite on the bolt threads and torque them down again to 22-24lbs/ft. As for possible damage goes, i highly doubt you messed anything up, one tooth off is the minimum when installing a cam.

 

I hope it doesn't sound like this. A friend installed his cam a tooth off also. Here is what his sounded like. After I tore it down and found the timing off I pulled the heads and found every intake valve bent. That is what you hear in the video, valves hitting the pistons.

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That was way more than one tooth off for that kind of damage.

 

nope, I took it apart. The cam he had was 600 lift and the heads were milled alot. Don't know if it makes any difference or not but it was the 6.0 iron block also.. Oh yes and he also had too long of pushrods also. He ended up with a big mess because he didn't know what he was doing.

 

Mine sounds almost just like that, not quite as loud, but same sound. I have a 581 lift and the heads are milled. It was set up by texas speed, push rods and all. It was the mechanic that installed it that put it one tooth off in advance. Which I was told was close to 15 degrees off. That is huge. I think I am going to do a compression test. I assume if any cylider is far off specs it is because something could be bent. If all cyliders are within specs I guess I got lucky and just have a lot of valve noise. Thank you all for the information. If anyone is in GA and doing engine work on an LS1 I recommend some of the more experienced specialty shops around atlanta, such as vengence or walden automotive.
Hell I now found out I can get crate engines turnkey some with computer programs and all for the money I will have in this one by the time it is all done. And they have a warranty and 100-150 more horses and torque.