I tried the Berryman B12 soaking solution for my oil burning issue. They're about $5 per bottle at Walmart for the pour in solution. Auto parts stores only had the aerosol versions. You want the version that is meant for fuel systems, not carb cleaner. I did the piston soak from the top, and also ran it in my cold crankcase before changing oil. If I recall, I used near one full bottle per cylinder, and could only do 2 cylinders at a time because they needed to be at the bottom of the cyl. All in all took 4 days to do all cylinders. The results? Not one bit of difference in my case. I'm gonna have to pull the motor to re-ring most likely.

I did learn that some pistons were water tight, and held the solution perfectly for 24 hours, and other pistons let the solution leak into the crankcase quickly over a few hours. Does it mean much at the end of the day, probably not.

 

No major update, just driving to put some miles on it and see if I'm losing oil still.

 

Man i hope it works changing the seals. If it is this will be the first that i seen that doesn't puff smoke out the exhaust.

 

I've let the car sit for a day, so I'll check the oil tonight after work. If it's below the top dot on the dipstick then valve seals didn't fix it. But i'll continue to drive until the message comes on to get a mileage.

Maybe this weekend I'll pull the valley cover and check the plastic baffle seal...I don't expect to find anything because again, no massive amount of oil in the catch can NOR the intake manifold. Grasping at straws now.

I was talking to others and it seems there were early year yellow springs, mid year blue springs and then natural color 2004 springs. I've heard 01 LS6 cars were notorious for ring flutter and oil consumption. My car had a motor replaced in 2007 and I found a picture when I did the cam install that I had natural color springs...assumed to be a later year 2004 motor LS6 replacement. A wild guess/assumption. Which means rings SHOULDN'T be an issue

By googling the engine PN 89017349 that I see on the receipt, I found this from another forum:
Step #1 is to look at Position 8. of the VIN #. A letter "S" would indicate that the car SHOULD have an LS6 as it came from the factory. This is the ONLY correlation between car VIN# and the engine...IE there are NO longer any "matching numbers" to look for; and as you can see the last 3 digits in the VIN are only part of the production sequence.

Step #2 is to look at the rear of the block, on the drivers side, just below the head mating surface. Here you will find the Block Casting #. You can research that #. It should read 12561168 or 12559378. This is an LS6 originally used in a Corvette "Y" or other "F" body, respectively. The number bears no relationship to the VIN# other than it IS an LS6 = "S".

Step #3 Look for a Chevrolet Part # on the Service Order.
Part #'s:
- 12561150
- 12562181
- 12562190
are Chevrolet LS6 Corvette Complete Engine Assemblies, Factory NEW, $ 7.698.00. No discount, NO core charge.
Part #
- 12561166
is a Chevrolet LS6 bare block

There are NO partial "short block" or "long block" assemblies available.

Step #4. Lastly I found 1 reference to your Part # 89017349

It is a GM Goodwrench Part # for a GM Factory Replacement Engine
Description: 5.7L., LS6-"S" for 2002-2004 Corvette
List: $ 7,987.54, Discount: $ 4,828.95 + $500.00 core charge.

So the GOOD NEWS is: YES it is an LS6 engine AND your 2001 LS6 was upgraded from the '01 385/385 to a '02-'04 405/400 (+ Napier rings, revised cam and valve train).

The NOT so good News is:
- If the Service Order does NOT have the Chevy Part #'s listed as in STEP#3, then it is NOT a Factory NEW Engine.
- It is either a Factory Rebuilt or Factory Remanufactured engine, which is what GM Goodwrench sells. The 89017349 Part # would tend to indicate this to be the case.
- Most likely it was an '01 LS6 exchange core block, that had a ring failure and was part of the recall and was replaced under warranty, and sent back to the factory. Rebuilt or remanufactured (hopefully Remanufactured). Then sent to GM Goodwrench and used to replace the engine in your car for some reason.
- It would be impossible to tell (without tearing it down) whether the block was just rehoned, Bored +.010 or Bored +.030.

There is also technically NO way to tell if it was rebuilt or remanufactured. There IS a difference.
- Rebuilt = Tear down (full or partial), throw away damaged parts and replace, measure and throw away anything that is NOT factory spec and replace, clean, recheck all tolerences, reassemble using any new and undamaged used parts.
- Remanufactured = Tear down, clean, replace ALL moving parts but using old block and heads, possibly old crank if undamaged and within spec., check all surface alignments and remachine if necessary, reassemble and run in.

My hunch is that Chevy was remanufacturing these engines for GM Goodwrench as it was easier and less time consuming. So you should be OK.

Note that the Goodwrench engine come with a 3 year, 36,000 mile Limited Warranty to the original owner, which is trasferrable IF the paper work is done when the car is sold.


According to that, it SHOULD be a later 02-04 LS6 with the improved oil rings.

 

Well, what's the verdict?

 

Checked oil this morning...down to 1/2 way between dipstick holes...still burning. Still driving till light comes on to get mileage.

 

I've had two 01s, a Z06 and a coupe. The coupe consumed oil excessively (1 quart every 3000 mi), the Z06 did not. I was able to significantly reduce the coupe's oil consumption by not down shifting (this exacerbates the problem) and switching to an oil with a higher Noack volatility index. Read the TSB on this issue if you have not done so already.

 

I have read the TSB. I don't doubt that not downshifting and a thicker oil COULD help, however it's just a band-aid. I don't downshift ALL the time and if I need to go to a thicker oil to get by for now then I can. Going into the winter months here in Northern KY so it won't see many miles anyways.

I have a feeling that the rings/bores are worn and a rebuild or motor swap will fix it 100%.

 

I did not say thicker oil, the higher Noack volatility index I selected was a 5W-30 grade. Good luck.

 

Another quart in 400mi...

I would maybe pull the valley cover and look at the PCV baffles just because, but if THAT much oil is coming through my PCV, I'd see it in my catch can and or intake manifold...which I do not.

A LS6 build or LS3 replacement is being looked at. Neither are in the budget right now so balancing pros/cons of each.

 

Yes' these ls engines are known to collect oil in intake manifold but your would be so full the car wouldn't start.

 

2002 LS1 PCV baffles are in the valve cover(s).

 

The LS6 valley cover baffles for the PCV port can get clogged. I can't find the topic where someone had this issue but, you can cap the valley cover and move to the early LS1 routing.

With new valve stem seals and PCV verified not to be leaking, clogged, routed incorrectly / fully functioning, the only option I can think of is to pull the motor, put a fresh hone on the cylinder walls and new rings.

 

Well today I decided to do some digging. Took the valley cover out to put my eyes on things to cross them off the list. I initially looked in the intake while it was still installed and didn't notice anything glaring. However having it removed and able to really look at it...maybe a different opinion.

Just some runners showing crud on the walls.

Cylinder 7 was noticeably "wet"


Intake removed you can see the crud built up



Moved onto removing the valley cover for inspection. Everything looked OK to me but decided to remove it and re-seal it while I was there. This is the new updated/latest valley cover PN 12577927





Talking to a friend of mine he suggested we do an experiment to isolate the PCV. I have had the Elite Engineering CC set up per their instructions since it was installed years ago.
Valley cover outlet to CC inlet
CC outlet to manifold behind the TB
Valve cover to air bridge couple before the TB




Now I have:
Valley cover outlet (which I verified has an internal restrictor orifice) to CC inlet
CC outlet ran to front of the radiator shroud (as to not dump onto motor/headers just in case)...vented to atmosphere
Manifold port plugged
Valve cover also ran to front of radiator shroud...vented to atmosphere





​​​​​​This cuts off any/all PCV related things to the intake and see if I still burn oil. It should 100% keep the intake clean. I have also zip tied a rag to the end of the CC outlet tube to catch anything so I don't make a complete mess.

If I still burn oil, it has to be rings. We shall see.

 

So, another update. It was nice enough to get some miles on the car so my wife and I jumped in after our usual Sunday morning breakfast spot and got about a 100mi trip in. Car now has 150mi on it since doing the PCV baffle cleaning/resealing and re-routing of the PCV lines. I was half expecting the oil level to be half way down since I was usually seeing it on the lower dot at 300-400mi.

I checked the oil last night after the car has sat and.....drum roll...oil level still looks to be at the top dot...AKA full lol.

With the CC outlet line ran to the front of the car I also do not see any noticeable evidence of oil coming out...I have a rag zip tied around it to catch anything and the rag looks dry. So I'll continue this setup until I hit my usual 300-400mi mark and monitor things.

Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel...

 

170mi decided to look at the CC. A lot of water and more than I expected. I usually see a dark mostly oil mix but this was very clear.



Still chugging along

 

Have to come up with another reason to drop in that LS3

 

I would say the water you see is condensation from the engine on start up collected in the catch can. Common when ambient temperatures drop. I would also guess that because you vented the catch can to the atmosphere, there is no vacuum to remove water vapor from the catch can. Maybe go back to the OEM closed PCV system and add a clean side oil separator to the passenger valve cover from Elite Engineering to control the smaller amount of vaporized oil into the intake or add a second catch can on the clean side.
https://www.eliteengineeringusa.com/...oil-separator/

What thermostat are you operating with? Engine temp must be above 200 F to evaporate condensation. A 180 F thermostat may not be best for a daily driver in cooler weather if you are only doing short drive times.

 

Good points. I have a short drive to work and temps have dropped here in NKY. I replaced the rag at the end of the CC outlet tube (which would have ran to the intake) with a clean one to see if ANYTHING is coming out. I had planned to go back to the OEM routing after this experiment. With this new configuration, three things have changed.

-Resealed and cleaned PCV baffle under valley cover.
-Removed the inline PCV valve (which was on the car when I bought it but based on the stock configuration should never have been there since the valley cover nipple has the integrated orifice. Car was fine even with this installed so either the inline PCV went bad, or cleaning/sealing the PCV baffle on valley cover helped)
-Vented things to atmosphere (so there is NO way anything is getting into the manifold and head ports)

As of now 200mi and no visible oil consumption based on looking at the dipstick.

Who knows, the money saved NOT going LS3 may buy me some new BTR canted valve cylinder heads...

 

Is there any new information about those BTR canted valve heads? I haven't found any since they teased it last Spring.