So, let's just say hypothetically someone I know (cough cough cou..me..gh cough cough) managed to fubar the install of his valve seals when a 228R cam was installed.

Long story short, car became an oil drinking monster within about 200 miles of the install, and upon removing the passenger side valve cover the seal to the very front of the engine could be seen not seated properly but up near the top of the valve spring on the valve stem.

That being said, the seals are going to be immediately replaced, (all 16 of them to be safe) and installed with a better method over the "12 mm socket and hammer" method. The valve seals the cam kit came with were all the same for intake and exhaust, all blue Brian Tooley seals. Upon installing the whole get up, one of the write ups being followed suggested that valve seals should be different for exhaust and intake. Now I've found where I can buy the same seals, or Brian Tooley has a set that are different for exhaust vs. intake, one being brown and the other being black, and the height of the seal seems to be a little different with each. Is there an advantage to this? As I said the cam is a TSP 228R, with PRC .650" Dual Valve Springs, and steel retainers.

I'm going to probably buy the comp cams valve seal installation tool, and as recommended upon reading reviews of the tool, I intend to carefully remove the spring from the seal before using the tool, so as to not smash it, and then re-install the spring once the seal is fully seated. Furthermore, I'm going to use a waterpump bolt threaded into the rocker bolt hole (or one similar since this time around I don't intend to have those bolts handy) and use a wrench held on to it with press down on the tool as a lever instead of hitting it with a hammer this time around, as that seemed to fail for me.

If you've made it this far reading into my ramblings, does anyone have any suggestions as far as selecting the valve seals? I'm thinking about going with the black/brown set this time around, but I'm open to suggestions. Also, any other advice so I don't screw it up again this time around? And finally, I apologize for any grammatical or syntax errors in this post, after discovering my mistake this afternoon I started to drown my sorrows.

 

There is some good information in this thread:
http://ls1tech.com/forums/generation...-unseated.html

There might be more to your issue than you think. Good luck.

 

I couldn't get your link to work.

If the link doesn't work, got to LS1tech Gen III Internal Engine and do a search for valve seals unseated.

 

hmmmm....I tried it again and it worked for me? A lot of discussion about valve seal install tools, and how some inner springs (if not set up properly) could pull up the seals.

 

I have had this issue on other cars with the aftermarket valve seals. My suggestion is to get GM seals for the earlier LS1 before they went to the one piece seal/seat. The GM seals work great. One of the forum GM vendors should be able to get you the correct parts.

 

I've always had good luck with the GM seals.

 

Just curious what made you stray away from the one piece seals?

 

They don't work with dual springs.

 

Same reason I did as well. On my Dart heads that I ran for a couple of years that had the beehive springs, I was using the one piece design. The one piece will definitely stay seated

 

Small update:
I finally got a chance to tear into it a little bit and get the rockers off of the passenger side to get a better look, and it looks like about 50% of my seals came undone and rode up the valve stem. After doing a fair amount of research on the matter, and from the advice you guys gave me here, I've ordered a full set of both GM intake and exhaust valve seals. I've also ordered a valve seal installation tool, and I'm going to be super methodical when it comes time to install these seals and make sure they are 100% seated. Speaking of which, Frodo, you mentioned that the inner springs can pull the seal up if "not set up properly", what exactly did you mean by that? I've only done valve springs in an LS1 twice now, and before we didn't have dual springs so we used the one piece seals, so I'm by no means an expert. I thought for the most part the spring just needed to be dropped on and set properly on the seat and then secured with the retainers. Is there more to it with dual springs that I may have missed?
Also, now that the whole car is put back together and I have no desire to pull the steering rack back out just so that I can get a socket on the crank bolt to turn the engine over to find tdc on each cylinder, I've ordered an offset box wrench that should fit on the bolt inside the balancer with the steering rack in place.
In a way this whole fiasco is making me wish I'd have run beehive springs instead with the one piece seals, but I had bought the dual springs for the reliability and piece of mind from dropped valves. But now it's introduced different headaches for me it seems so far.

 

What I was referring to was mentioned in the quoted thread on LS1tech...that being that the O.D. of the seals interference with the I.D. of the inner spring on a dual spring setup. I think it could be due to the seals being too large, or the seals being compressed during install and "bulging". There was quite a bit of interesting information in the thread from people who experienced the same issues you've had.

 

Oh ok, I see what you are saying. I read through that thread and it had a lot of good information, I just thought that you were inferring that there was some sort of specific install procedure for dual springs that I may have missed, not just an incompatibility of parts. Once my new seals get here I'm going to compare them to the ones that came with my cam bundle, and see how the diameters compare. Hopefully this will solve my issues. Thank you!