Nah rich. Our motors are not perfectly balanced like the ZO6 ZR1. You can get away with a certain amount of imbalance. If he swapped in another stock piston you would never know. And if you were really careful and the bore was fine you can re-ring the new piston with the old rings and not even hone the cylinder. Not saying its the right way but it is possible.
Nick sunk 1 piston in his probe this way and the motor had 200+k on it. The piston came out of a motor with about 170k IIRC. The motor went on to make 350whp on 33psi!
But yes I doubt he swapped out a piston on his back cause the head would still have to come off along with the oil pan and OMG what a job it would be. It may be possible but I would have to see it.
Wouldn’t have made sense for him to do that since he worked at a dealer at the time so he could have done it on a weekend at a shop. Kinda makes me nervous cause Frank did a trans for me a couple years ago.
I raced this car once on the highway. I’d love to see this special cam and dyno tune, as my heavy, automatic shitbox with an off the shelf TSP224R hurt it pretty badly.
Anyway, I wouldn’t buy anything that this Frank guy ever had his hands on after seeing/hearing what happened to Rich’s car. Fuck that.
Eh sounds supe sketchy to me. I kno u cant just simply swap rod bolts in these motors because oce you do that it could take the bearing and rod out of round and unbalance the rod. I agree it can be dont but its super sketchy, and would result in a lasting pisspounded or dialy driven motor. Overall will it work, yes but is it wrong…yes, 100%!
Ehh… I wouldn’t call it super sketchy, it works just fine. It’s a cracked -rod so as long as they aren’t overtorqued it isn’t an issue. Sure, you should always resize them, but why would you bother? If you are that deep in the motor, just forge the bitch!
Richie is a little anal about engines and such which is wierd considering he had Frank work on his car… LOL jk. But I don’t worry too much about all this “it could possibly be out of round” stuff.
Truth about our motors is they are not really well balanced in the first place. so replacing rod bolts and such is not too big a deal. We all got the same off the shelf parts assembled by robots and factory workers who are always more worried about whether they are getting laid off next week more than if Richie’s LS1 is gonna toss a rod on an over rev.
This is why factory freaks exist. Every once in a while it actual all comes together as intended. There was a guy who experimented with a factory block, hand assembled, balanced, and blue printed. With all factory parts. It was technically a stock LS1. Put down 400+hp on an engine dyno
I can bet you 100% when my new long block went in, it was making over 400hp on a engine dyno as well, considering it put down 351rwhp/355rwtq through 1 3/4 hooker headers, a shitty pace setter Y pipe and the stock catback.
most car freaks like Rich would probably have a heart attack if they knew what GM actually has techs do to repair vehicles while they are in warranty, but then again it works 95% of the time.
I don’t know the exact number. This was about 10 years ago. I know it was astonishing to say the least. Like 50hp over another low mile as assembled by GM LS1. I just didn’t want to sound like I was embellishing the story any.
I work at the dead end of computer drive east… Thats the dead end denooyer techs drive 99% of the vehilces being “fixed”…ive seen and heard some pisspoundings lol esp on redline grandsport vetts, camaros and a 4 door cts-v lol i know and it does make me puke in my palet
I’m talking about the actual mechanical repair side of things. I’ve had GM warranty administrators tell me to reassemble motors that I found shavings in and worry about it if they come back basically.