I’ve had my c5 (02 z51 black coupe) for about 5 months. She is in pretty good shape. 108k miles. Could use some weatherstripping and paint down the line. I replaced the balancer (power bond), idler pulley, new front tie rod ends (precision) new f14 wheels and continental performance tires. New pads. Corsa xtreme catback. So I’m already in it about $24k including purchase price. No leaks, powerful. But I’m having an issue. It has a ticking/knock that is quite noticeable on start up. I’m having trouble locating but I believe it’s lifter. It mostly goes away after it’s warmed up and driven for a good five ten minutes. Very quiet after that. No loss of power. No misfire. Initially I was thinking it was the typical LS1 piston slap as it used to go away faster and wasn’t as noticeable. Now I’m a bit concerned lifter or low end.. hard to tell but because it isn’t showing any other issues. I’ve been told by several C5 owners that this is just part of it and theirs has done this for years.

I love this car and I definitely had planned to keep it to pass down. I guess I could sell it but I know I’ll lose at least 10 grand. And I won’t be able to afford another one at least for a very long time

i’m curious what you guys would consider the average cost of a full rebuild for my car? And how would you compare this to a motor swap with either another LS1 or something different?

I don’t have the means to do the job myself unfortunately. So this would be labor included.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vgdYkIV5QZE?feature=share

 

Bump

 

Hard to condemn the motor on that. I personally thought I blew my motor, but discovered a slightly loose spark plug making a similar sound.

 

Yea I know you’re right for sure. Just trying to prepare if needed

 

The key thing is that the noise goes away and you notice no performance degradation.

My initial reaction is that it sounds a lot like an exhaust leak, If not, my gut tells me that a good oil change with some first class fluids may make your noise go away.

 

Jim, it is a little tough to be sure of the noise; especially with the hood closed and doing a walkaround of your car (looks nice, by the way). Having the hood open would probably allow a better evaluation of the noise. Have you checked the DIC for codes? If the noise is really a lifter and not "standard" piston slap, you may have enough effect on engine performance to generate one or more Powertrain codes.
There is at least one Corvette club in your area, https://www.longhorncorvette.com/. You may want to visit one of their meetings and ask for advice and recommendations where people are "up close and personal" and can hear the noise much better.
If it is a lifter issue, you do not necessarily have to do an engine rebuild to correct that issue. It will still be somewhat expensive since you have to remove the heads to change out the lifters, so guessing about $2,000 (again, members from the local club could steer you to the right shop for a fair rate and quality work).
Best wishes for a simple and inexpensive fix.

 

I sure hope so. It doesn’t completely go away but it’s barely noticeable and only on one side of the motor after driving for about 25 minutes and letting it idle for a few minutes. I’ve been thinking about doing an oil treatment to see if it helps. I just had my balancer done and it wasn’t this bad before hand

 

thank you very much for your input. Only codes that I get on a semi frequent basis is lean code bank one and sometimes bank two and it seems to behave (mostly) after I clean the MAF sensor. Still something going on there but I have not had any other powertrain codes that I know of and not quite sure how that could relate but I’m still very much learning

 

May be a lot of things. You never mentioned when, this 108k car was first noticed ticking. If it was right from the beginning there's a very good chance you have original lifters well known to partially collapse and tick. Anything else would usually blow smoke and smell but you might want a compression check done to gauge if you have other issues before you throw good money after bad

https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com...noise-393.html

 

Your YouTube link doesn’t work.

Don’t fret about this. Very likely a lifter pumping up. Sometimes an oil additive will help, and someone is bound to cover that. What oil have you been using?

Highly recommend having a skilled ear listen to this as a first check.

 

Agree on trying the oil additive. When I had my '86 Maxima, the engine developed a noticeable tick. It drove me nuts. I asked my go to Mechanic about fixing it and he said, "expensive"! He suggested first I use an oil additive called Rislone Engine Treatment. I did and the tick was gone and never came back.

 

I will try this actually… how did you apply it?

I am seriously considering a rebuilt before she throws some bs… but if you swear by this stuff I will definitely do it. Let me know

 

Pour it in the oil.

 

Follow the directions with the additive. Do not overfill the oil capacity. When I used it, I did so at an oil change and replaced 1 quart with the additive. Swear by it? It worked for me. "No implied guarantees or warranty intended"

 

Can't remember if you're stock engine, or? If you're running stiffer valve springs, you may have a lifter bleed down. I mean, this could happen on a stock engine, but it's more likely to manifest the stiffer the springs are that you're running. I have the same issue, because I'm running dual springs in an LS7, and stock lifters.

 

it’s stock as far as I know. I got it confirmed today by a performance shop here in austin that cylinder 6 and 8 have collapsed lifters and said a rebuild is inevitable. Just wondering what a reasonable price for this would be. They said stock for stock something like $7k for full out rebuild. But since they’re in there I kind of want to go mild cam, push rods, headers etc.. like actually do it.. said something like 10-11.