Heres the story...

When the motor was first installed the oil pump locked up and also locked up the gear drive off the camshaft(hotcam) and we shut the motor off immediatly. The car was in the shops hands at this time. The shop replaced the gear and checked the cam and got all the metal(as much as seen) out of the motor. I drove the motor for 200-300 miles and it began to miss and not fire on 1 or more cyl's. I had it tuned and it seemed to be better but it wasnt really. BTW we used the same cam in the motor that the oil pump blew up on. Well i was driving it into town and then all of a sudden around 4000 rpms it shut off with a loud ticking noise. I thought the opti was going bad so it wasnt to my supprise. Well i took it to the shop and they replaced the PCM wiring harness and opti+ plug wires and it still wouldnt give spark. So then they pulled of valve covers to find metal, rods and they blieve the cam had a lobe shear off little by little (hence the getting progressively worse) and the rods and rocker arms appeared to be the weak point of all the spinning mass. The motor had a scat cast crank, h-beam rods, keith black hypereutectic(sp?) pistons and some very light head work with a hotcam kit. Now I get to do it all over again. Kinda sucks but its a fresh start to do it right. Im thinking the cast crank will be ok(if its not damaged) the rods alike and get some srp forged pistons. I will also do alot more head work and put probably a gm847 cam into her. The redline is set at 7,000. Im pissed but its a fresh start. Ohh and some long tubes. Thanks, Brian Kaiser

 

damn. that sucks. I wonder if the cam was bad or if your oil drive was bad. when I rebuilt my eng.(which only has 300miles on it BTW) I replaced my drive due to the teeth looking slightly worn, and I didnt want to risk it getting worse, and droping metal shavings into the oil pump. is the place that did the eng. building goin to take care of the eng.? or are you stuck w/paying for it? good luck this time around man.
chris

 

Yeah, the shop better be covering that, or I would be majorly pissed

 

Ahh i think im just going to throw this biotch back together and sell it for as much as i can. Then im going to buy a low miles(under 15k) 02 ss and drive it. I might do all boltons and then a big cam. How reliable is a LS1 with a cam swap pertaining to cam bearings? im soo sick of this current car im just gonna start planning my new one. Here it goes...

Long Tubes, Custom Y-Pipe and an E-Cutout

I will also do a lid or whatever induction mods they have. After that I will do a BIG cam. What types of cams do you suggest? RWHP? Im pretty much in the dark with LS1 performance upgrades. Thanks, Brian Kaiser

 

Sounds like somebody didn't know what they were doing!

What a screw up that is!

No excuse for that.

Whoever built that motor is fired.

 

I think some full bolton big cam LS1s are making in the 425-450 HP neighborhood?

Dont quote me on it, but its up there.

 

sounds right to me too. stock heads cars making more then most of out LT1 ported head combo's.