Hello everyone, my names Austin white and I just picked up a 2002 Z06 about 3 weeks ago. I was enjoying the hell out of it until I got hit, and then two days later it broke down. It turns out that the harmonic balancer bolt backed out and ended up destroying my crank. The balancer managed to weld part of itself to the end of the crank. Has anyone heard of this happening before??

I took it to a shop and was quoted 7000 to have it fixed which is insane. Yesterday I took it to a machine shop and was quoted 4500-5000. Does that seem reasonable to you guys? I'll attach some pics so you can see the car and the damage.

 

Here's the car

 

Where in virginia are you? I am in Lynchburg and have a good local mechanic that does all the work on my Z.

Shakey

 

Welcome to the forum. Sorry this happened to you....nasty. Where are you located? Some of us can refer you to a shop for help.

 

It seems to me you will need a new crank which can be found pretty cheap $100~, with that being said you will either need to pull the engine yourself (saves money) or have a shop do it and have a crank machined and installed into your car. For the prices you listed. If you can do the work yourself it may be cheaper to buy a forged shortblock and swap your top end on it and reinstall yourself. Depending on where your at in Virginia, Tick performance is not too far from you and has some good deals on forged shortblocks right now.

But to your original question I have seen it happen before but very rarely.

 

Im located in loudoun county up in northern virginia. I was quoted 1500 for a forged crank. I was thinking it might be a good time to get a 383 stroker kit while the engines being rebuilt. Its my daily driver and don't have time to do it myself so sadly ill have to pay a bunch in labor.

 

Before I would pay $10K, I would look at a HP LS3 525 HP crate motor.
For reference, here is a link.

https://www.summitracing.com/search/...-based-engines

$4500.00 for pulling the motor and doing a rebuild, sounds about right.

 

That's about 700 too much for a crank that you will need for a daily driver, if you wanna go to a 383.

http://www.tickperformance.com/k1-te...t-012fae40024/

If you doing that maybe you should consider buying a motor and just having a shop switch the motor out which should only take 2 days top for a shop. It took my shop a day to drop one out and put a complete (that was already ready to go) in.

 

In your shoes, the first question is if you will ever track the car. That's a fork in the road, and might completely change the direction you go.

 

Love these kinds of posts..... New guy, just bought a C5Z, isn't even familiar with the car yet much less know anything about it and is going to start throwing mad money at it. Firstly if $7K is insane to you then how are you planning on building this car w $10K?
Secondly.. How much did you pay? how many miles? What else are you going to need to replace. that 383 Stroker is going to need a nice clutch behind it. How bout tires? Trans? diff? tune? you'll need headers, X pipe to get the most out of that Stroker. Depending on miles, wear and tear you can easily spend on the build of what you probably spent on the car itself. When you say you got hit... Did the car sustain a lot of damage? You going to replace that too?
When you purchased the car did you not check for balancer wobble? That is not uncommon on these LS1/LS6 cars w high mileage.

Here is my thought... Go on Ebay, CL find yourself a used low/high mileage short, long block, throw it in and enjoy the car and get to know it. These cars a quick right out of the box. Start with bolt ons... Otherwise you are going to be out a lot of cash to do the car right. Finding a reputable shop to do this work ( provided you cannot do it all yourself) can present it own set of problems once car is built if not done right.

Welcome to the forum... congrats on your C5Z.. They are great cars. Keep us posted on your progress, a lot of guys with a lot of knowledge here. GL

 

Honestly i thought it would only be another 2000 or so for the stroker kit. I found this the other day.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/e...9030/overview/

Any thoughts on that? I bought the car for 15k with 116k miles. The only other thing on my list to at the moment is headers and exhaust. how much torque can the t56 take before I need to build it? I only got sideswiped so its just gonna be a $500 bill that the other driver is gonna pay out of pocket. About the harmonic balancer wobble.. I did check that and it seemed fine to me. I should have had a mechanic check it out for me.

 

Not very often. I may hit the drag strip every few months.

 

Would building a mild 383 with stock heads really cost 10K? Of course in the future I would get a big cam and better heads.

 

Welcome to the forum and I'm sorry for your misfortune. I have another option for you. I pulled my perfectly running 51K mile LS6 last year when i put in my LS7. It's sitting in my garage complete intake to pan. I've been thinking about letting it go. Oh, I'm in Loudoun County VA as well. PM me if you are interested.

 

How much??

 

I'm thinking 4K. I was keeping it for a back up if my LS7 blows. I wasn't really looking to sell but you're local and if interested I might consider.

 

51K mi LS6 for $4K.. ( asking price) and local to you.... Definitely an option... Pick this up as a long block and then throw yours up on CL to recoup part of your money. Just a thought.