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Ticking noise on LS1

helicraze

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Hi, sorry if this has been covered a few times i read up but can't seem to determine if its an issue or not in my case.

When my car is cold (sitting over night or after work), when i start it and drive its ticking from the engine, does not do it when idling, you can rev it slightly and hear it, but mainly when driving off lightly. After about 1 minute its not there.

So its either the lifters or piston slap? The motor does not burn oil between changes.

I am not fussed about the noise if its not an issue, just want to be sure its not something wrong with the oil pressure or something not going to the lifters.

Running 10/40W shell or mobil oil, am going to try nolun next, is it worth putting a bottle of lifter free up in it?
 

ARATIC

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No harm in putting in some Nulon lifter free see if it makes a difference, a few LS1 owners I've seen swear by it. Good idea to put it in around 1,000-1,500kms before an oil change though, not straight after an oil change
 

SirNemesis

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LS1's are ticky/noisy engines by design. If you've removed the engine cover or fitted aftermarket extractors this will be louder than normal. Also synthetic oil tends to make the lifters noisier again, but this isn't anything to worry about.

Does it happen warm, or only on a cold engine. If its only cold, its likely to be piston slap. Don't link piston slap to oil usage either, they are 2 seperate problems.
 

VZHSV

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as Nemesis said If its cold most likely Piston Slap if it only happens when warm Lifters for sure .
i was using Mobil 1 5-30 on my LS2 on cold startup silent engine after the motor was fully warm / after a drive the lifters were loud as
so stepped it up to Mobil 1 15-50 ( us version ) and its quitened it right down :)
 

helicraze

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Ah ha thanks guys well, its only when cold for first minute or so.

Sounds like piston slap. I've removed the 1 large engine cover and got the twin fibreglass ones, extractors are stock HSV

There is no oil usage and no noise when warm so sounds like its no issue.

So just to confirm if it is only piston slap when cold and no oil usage is this a problem? Is my engine life likely to suffer or am i free to put a cam or blower on without worry of short engine life?
 

dijm8

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its a normal noise m8 comes standard with every ls1 commy :p

yeh cam it or blow it m8, wont do any harm at all, pretty tough engines so you should be all good, been down the cam path b4 and had no problems what so ever
 

cpbait

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should be right, mines got mild piston slap and gudgeon pin noise, had it checked out a couple of times at different places and was told its normal for an ls1 and usual for an ls1 with a few kays on it, mine was doing it at about 124,xxxkm's when i got it and still doing it at 195,xxx km's, no oil usage and iv had no problems, will fix it soon, putting cam in mine and see how it goes, but yeh as dijm8 said standard for an ls1.
 
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