So after an arduous pain in the **** from the dealer and a warranty that won't cover anything, things are finally coming together on the car. The dealer isn't helping me at all on the car they sold, but at least are refunding the warranty in full since they sold useless crap to me. Sometimes when you buy a used car with mods you roll the dice. I had a pretty good price deal with all the mods that were on the car (Corsa exhaust, Kook's Long Tube Headers, High Flow Cats, 2500 RPM Stall, GMPP 5364 Heads, Upgraded springs and pushrods, but an unknown cam and tuned), but all the trouble here is gonna cost a bit. All in all, I think I still come out ahead because the cost of the mods that I didn't have to pay for exceeds the cost the repairs are going to run me this time.

A broken valve spring started the all the trouble, so Stephen and Jason at England Green helped get the repairs underway.






They pulled the head's off after a leakdown test revealed a bent valve. Definitely an eyebrow on the faulty cylinder.





What is troubling though, is there is some intake valve impact on the other cylinders even though the springs were intact. Suspect that either the original setup was not done properly or there may be a timing chain issue.

The head's are in good shape, but are going to be cleaned up and inspected.




Since we've already gone this far, we're going to pull whatever cam is currently in there, setup the tolerances properly and put a new Mayhem II cam in there.

Now I just have to wait ~2 weeks.

 

I'm glad you're on track to getting it fixed. I don't necessarily agree with slamming the dealer given the list of mods you gave. GM has made it clear for years they do not warrant mods like that. Anyway, good luck with getting it squared away.

 

Interesting. Keep us up to date

 

"What is troubling though, is there is some intake valve impact on the other cylinders even though the springs were intact. Suspect that either the original setup was not done properly or there may be a timing chain issue."

Maybe the RPM's were too high and you floated the valves and that cause the valve to piston contact. If that's the case then maybe the heads should be disassembled and all the valves checked. Are they replacing the piston on the cylinder with the broken valve spring? The reason I ask is because years ago I dropped a nut from the air cleaner rod down the carb without knowing it. Found it when I heard the racket it made when it got into a cylinder. It ended up getting wedged in the spark plug gap but didn't know until I'd pulled the head. After reassembly there was a slapping sound from that side of the engine. Had to pull it all apart only to discover that the piston was damaged more than was visible by just looking at it, which only showed a few impacts from the nut. Turns out the skirt broke loose from the top and the top was broke in three pieces with only the rings holding it together. The slapping noise was the skirt hitting the upper half of the piston as the engine turned over.

Just something to think about before you have it all put back together. Would hate to hear you had to have it pulled apart after putting it all back together.

 

Nice ding in the piston. Just curious, Was the engine this way when you bought it or it happend after you bought it?

Maybe small claims court could be enough to cover this. Many states require dealers to warranty.

 

Sounds like you have it under control. It should run great when done. Keep us posted.

 

Wow, thanks for the tour! I think that's the deepest I have seen into the mechanicals on this part of the forum. Interesting pictures and glad you're getting resolution to your problems.

 

And you've got a good shop working on it now.

 

It sounds like the dealer was happy to sell him a warrantee with the car, leading him to believe that it would cover problems like this.

 

Ding! Ding! Ding!

The real pain of it was the dealer only listed that it had exhaust, headers, and a stall converter. No mention of the cam, heads, and supporting mods. Dealer didn't know what they had, and also talked out of their **** about the warranty work.

As for the ding in piston #4, it looks aweful in the picture, but when I saw it in person it feels like a like scratch more than a true ding. I was advised by Stephen to not mess with it as he didn't think the impact really did anything to the piston.

 

Everything on the engine was like this when I bought it, minus the broken valve spring. I had only had it for a little over two weeks when all the trouble started.

 

The joy purchasing a used car.

 

Well, the bright side is, now you'll rebuild it correctly with parts you KNOW.


-Mike

 

I'm sorry for all your troubles but it sounds like you'll get things sorted out. Rebuild the engine 'right' and I suggest instead of modding for extreme performance go for a compromise of performance and reliability. Good luck on the rebuild...keep us posted!

 

Im guessing it wasnt a Chevy dealer that sold you the car? I would think there would be legal issues for a dealer selling a car with a modified emissions system.

 

No it wasn't. Was a used car dealer at an independent lot. I bought the car at the end of the day on a saturday and their service bay was already closed up so they couldn't do a state inspection, and told me to come back Monday with the car. (Don't know why it wasn't previously inspected to be honest). Came back and car wouldn't pass inspection due to 2 Not Ready's in OBD2. After about 1000 miles of driving car still would not become ready so I suspected a problem and took it to EG to check the old tune. There were readiness parameters turned off so the car would never pass inspection.

 

We are definitely going for reliability and streetability. Stephen suggested the Mayhem II cam as opposed to anything larger and more extreme for just that reason.

 

I hope you post a follow up vid after the "Necessary Evil" has been completed....

 

You know it.