VFII SS sounds like a truck when cold

[Milo 6.0]

My replacement LS3 has now done 25k. Barely audible on cold start. Huge difference compared to the original engine. It also always felt stronger that the original engine.

This just show that quality control when it came to tolerances was not very good...

Wow so even the replacement has minor piston slap.
Thats pretty sad tbh.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Wow so even the replacement has minor piston slap.
Thats pretty sad tbh.

When you have really bad one...then any improvement is welcome...

 

[lmoengnr]

2012 L77 no noise at all.
2012 LS3 just as quiet as the L77
2017 LS3 is a bit of a slapper...

 

[chopsuey]

Rockers and bore clearances aren’t related as they are two separate issues.

The rocker miss-install does give pause for the lack of care and quality we can expect from dealers

It could be I am butchering what he said, it's kind of a blurr as I got a bit shitty lol
I'm heading there to have a chat with them..
I don't think they are telling me to do it for the sake of doing it, but he did say I don't have to complete the rebuild, I can put it back together but he said its going to continue to wear which can lead to a more expensive event. They also outsource the rebuild so they wont make the labor on that

@RevNev I should have photos of it soon

 

[Skylarking]

It could be I am butchering what he said, it's kind of a blurr as I got a bit shitty lol
I'm heading there to have a chat with them..
I don't think they are telling me to do it for the sake of doing it, but he did say I don't have to complete the rebuild, I can put it back together but he said its going to continue to wear which can lead to a more expensive event. They also outsource the rebuild so they wont make the labor on that

@RevNev I should have photos of it soon

I can really understand getting shitty over such issues and not understanding all the finer points of these problem LS3’s

Best approach would have been to have gotten an independent engineering expert to evaluate the engine piston slap and lifter defects and to have written a report on their findings. Then have another place quality place rebuild the engine…

Unfortunately doing it this way is expensive. But doing it this way provides evidence of what is the cause of the defect (the unacceptable noise) and your loss (the diagnostic and rebuild costs, etc). Such then becomes the basis of a good ACL case before a tribunal.
Again, unfortunately the problem for most is that expert independent engineering diagnosis isn’t cheap (couple grand) and a proper rebuild isn’t cheap (maybe $20k?). Most can’t afford to do such which is where ACL really falls apart. But if you can manage the costs, you’ll have a nice LS3 afterwards and scope for getting your money back via a tribunal ruling (if you bought the car from a car dealer that is).

Isn’t hindsight wonderful… but let’s just move forward and do what we can to get a nice runner back on the road…

Had fuel contamination caused about a $1000 repair costs and to prove the cause would have cost $2000 in fuel analysis, costs of a tribunal case and expert testimony… Using ACL wouldn’t have been cost effective (initially) though I’d probably have won the case . But it was far easier to let my insurance sort out the repairs and cost recovery. And as I framed the claim as malicious damage from a known person (because businesses are persons in law) there was no excess to pay. Doubt you’d be able to make the same claim for wrongly installed rockers… but you never know (it’s rather negligent to make such mistakes when doing a recall).

Looking forward to seeing some pics

 

[chopsuey]

I can really understand getting shitty over such issues and not understanding all the finer points of these problem LS3’s

Best approach would have been to have gotten an independent engineering expert to evaluate the engine piston slap and lifter defects and to have written a report on their findings. Then have another place quality place rebuild the engine…

Unfortunately doing it this way is expensive. But doing it this way provides evidence of what is the cause of the defect (the unacceptable noise) and your loss (the diagnostic and rebuild costs, etc). Such then becomes the basis of a good ACL case before a tribunal.
Again, unfortunately the problem for most is that expert independent engineering diagnosis isn’t cheap (couple grand) and a proper rebuild isn’t cheap (maybe $20k?). Most can’t afford to do such which is where ACL really falls apart. But if you can manage the costs, you’ll have a nice LS3 afterwards and scope for getting your money back via a tribunal ruling (if you bought the car from a car dealer that is).

Isn’t hindsight wonderful… but let’s just move forward and do what we can to get a nice runner back on the road…

Had fuel contamination caused about a $1000 repair costs and to prove the cause would have cost $2000 in fuel analysis, costs of a tribunal case and expert testimony… Using ACL wouldn’t have been cost effective (initially) though I’d probably have won the case . But it was far easier to let my insurance sort out the repairs and cost recovery. And as I framed the claim as malicious damage from a known person (because businesses are persons in law) there was no excess to pay. Doubt you’d be able to make the same claim for wrongly installed rockers… but you never know (it’s rather negligent to make such mistakes when doing a recall).

Looking forward to seeing some pics

Okay, so here is some photos
find full res here (hopefully this is allowed) https://photos.app.goo.gl/48BFX73sF2s2zevS6
It wouldn't let me upload full res files, which is kind of needed in this case.

So couple things I understand
Two of the cylinders can be physically rattled by hand. (not the ones with the fucked rockers)

Almost all of the cylinder have scuff marks from the pistons as you can easily see in the photos, clearance issue from factory? My understanding from talking with these guys, it should not be like this and this is the worst ls3 they have seen.. although they mainly do power kits so take that as you will.. my stock vf is looking kinda wimp next to the senator they had lol

Cylinder 4 (one I had miss fire a while back, loose lead was the cause) is the worst, the nail comment I made before (now removed) was actually to do with you being able to physically catch your nail on a couple scuff marks on the wall of the bore. You can see in the last photo there is not as much carbon build-up on this cylinder, they are not sure why, but it may have been mis-firing for a while before I brought it and had it fixed (engine light came on a couple days after I brought it)

So the rebuild is probably going to happen. From my understanding they will use my block, machine the bore back (plenty of meat on the bore) and install new pistons. Quote to do just this bit is around $4100, havnt got the full quote but prob alot

Normal res photos for those not wanting the full res

4 year warranty on these is starting to make sense..

oh quick edit, I forgot to mention because I didn't take a photo. The coating on the rockers were worn in the middle and the side.. dunno if this was done as part of the recall, because they would have installed new ones?

 

[Ron Burgundy]

That looks horrible for 2017 engine !!!!

 

[chrisp]

I don’t know if it has already been mentioned or not, but how many kilometres has this engine done?

 

[chopsuey]

I don’t know if it has already been mentioned or not, but how many kilometres has this engine done?

129k

 

[Banjo79]

Thanks for the pics. Thank God you didn't feed those bad boys any intake cleaner, for a Saturday morning project. You would have had 2 cats screaming for mercy and the neighbourhood in a complete white out!