Oyishdog

what should I be concerned about in a high mileage ls1? Many of the c5's I am looking to buy for track use have 85-120k miles...what needs to be replaced? any down sides to tracking a car with this type of mileage? Is the motor just going to let up on me after a few events? any info would help!

stairman

I bought a 97 with 175,000 miles on this year, put some suspension under it and have been beating it to death, it just does not want to die. It does have some blow buy, but nothing a vented catch can did not take care of. It does not have the most power out there, but it is still fun.

VetteDrmr

My fun is mainly autocross with a DE or 2 each year, but I'm about ready to click over 150K miles, no oil consumption to speak of. I do run an oil cooler, and I'm getting ready to swap out the valve springs as PM.

IMO, if you keep the engine temps under control and don't mod the engine, it'll go quite a while.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

sothpaw2

Mike,

How hot is "under control"? I don't have an oil cooler on my Z06 and would like a guideline for when to pit the car in order to limit possibility of extreme engine wear. My Z is stock except for headers (not coated)--do you have a road race pan on there too?

VetteDrmr

In my pre-oil cooler days, I'd keep the oil temps up on the DIC, and when they got to 275-280 I'd back off for a lap or two (mainly by going up a gear) until they dropped down into the 250 range, then I'd be back at it again.

With my oil cooler now my temps stabilize in the 250-260 range for a 20 minute run in Texas summer.

I don't run any kind of race pan. I *do* run a quart overfilled when I'm on the track.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

sothpaw2

How many events has that formula worked for you? I purposely have avoided events in summer to keep the temps down instead of doing a cooler on my C4. I never got to 250 on oil. Yet, the bearings showed some wear. I didn't run 1 qt over in the beginning--hoping that was it and that LS6 has a better lub design then the LT1.

VetteDrmr

Can't speak to a C4's temperament, but I run my oil life monitor down to 0% between oil changes (M1 10w-30) and get my oil analyzed by Blackstone labs. My wear metals are in good shape, with aluminum trending slightly higher than nominal on the last sample.

Running 1 qt. over is a good practice in most engines due to the oil staying up inside the engine during high speed sweepers and the subsequent low oil level in the pan. Unporting the oil pump pickup is always a bad thing.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

varkwso

I have 127,000 on my LS1 99 and it runs like a champ. I think you are more likely to have trans problems then engine problems with high miles.

jeff

Oyishdog

good info...thanks guys