[cmitchell17]

Originally Posted by Baddawg53

I was just having the same issue, ended up using an impact driver and was able to bust them loose. Didn't feel comfortable using a hammer on an aluminum block but I had to eventually man up and swing it. Immediately ordered a new set of bolts.

So I got a chrome moly steel impact 3/4 in drive put my impact driver on the lowest setting and I barely touched the trigger and it instantly snapped off. This wasn't the regular polished chrome 3/4 T40 socket, this was a impact rated chrome moly.

I am thinking my only hope here is going to be welding a nut or something to the screw, and ill just have to get a new retainer plate since I know its going to melt the seal behind it. I should have known to prepare for this issue since I hear about it so much.

I mean it was Harbor Freight, but im sure the same supplier makes all of them anyway.

I have some good cobalt bits I guess I could try to drill it out but I don't want to risk messing up the threads and not sure if it would even help me to drill it out any.

[Ryfly05]

Heat man, heat. Thats the only thing that will work on red loctite if you did in fact use it. Even if it's not red loctite in there heat will be your friend.

[Baddawg53]

This is what I was referring to. This is what I used.

[cmitchell17]

So I finally got them off. At first I was welding nuts and they kept breaking off. I didn't want to hold it down on full voltage and wire speed. But the key was finding a nut with the same OD as the torx screw. This allows the ID of the nut to be big enough to get the gun in there and get the weld pool in the center of the torx screw instead of it hitting the edge of the nut. You also need to preweld in the recessed torx holes and fill them in so when you put the nut over it you have a good clean weld pool to get everything bonded together tight.

So after I got a good sized nut, I just put a small weld I didn't even fill in the nut ID more than about 1/3 with filler and let it cool just until the visible red goes away and it torques right off.

[cmitchell17]

Originally Posted by Ryfly05

Heat man, heat. Thats the only thing that will work on red loctite if you did in fact use it. Even if it's not red loctite in there heat will be your friend.

Yeah I made sure to torque them out as soon as they cooled down from red hot, so they still should have been pretty hot, but I think heat works better when you have nuts stuck to external threads since you get full thermal expansion on the nut and not on the externally threaded bolt. It also appears I did in fact put medium blue loctite as its got the whiteish ashy appearance and usually with the red loctite it stays more of the red color and its more gummy.

Not sure why I didn't have this issue before. Now I can see why people talk about this all the time.

[cmitchell17]

So I think they say never look at your cam bearings, this was the #4 intake which was the same lobe that got hit the hardest on the cam:



The rest of the cam bearings look ok.

[cmitchell17]

You can see the lobes look ok across the base then once it start hitting the lobe ramp the wear starts happening:









You can see it better on this last picture the base circle part of the lobe is ok, then once it gets halfway through the wear and pitting starts:

[cmitchell17]

Has anyone put new cam bearings in a GEN V LT1 before? I think I have heard there are some issues with clearance on the GEN V stuff as compared to the LS but not sure though.

[Katech_Mike]

Hate to see it.

Sounds like you did everything right.

Possible bad heat treat on the camshaft?

[Spaceme1117]

Originally Posted by Katech_Mike

Hate to see it.

Sounds like you did everything right.

Possible bad heat treat on the camshaft?

That's what I was thinking as well.

[KingLT1]

Originally Posted by cmitchell17

So, to be fair to the Johnson's, if I remember correctly, I went through 3 different length pushrods trying to get the preload dialed in for the Johnson's. I eventually went back to my original length at 7.850, which I think is pretty standard for new cam kits to come with. I could have been too close to the travel limit I have to go back and see if I can find any pictures or notes I have of my setup and PTV as well. I'll check the lifter preload again and see just using the finger tight method and screw turns instead of dealing with the adjustable pushrod length checker and taking it in and out.

I always felt that my engine was too noisy and after going through the different pushrods lengths I just kind of gave up with the noise. It was bad enough you could clearly hear it driving inside the car with the radio off, even during highway speed.

The damage isn't isolated enough on the #4 intake for me to think it was something wrong with that lifter/pushrod/rocker/spring combo, but some of the other lobes don't look that bad, but I am going to get the other head off tonight and get more pictures. I need to also check to see if any of the pushrods are bent and check the springs as well and get them off and I can test them at work to see if anything is off on them.

What was your actual lifter preload cold? I have been following 2110 lifter discussion for years going back over to LS1 tech and I swear the 2110 called for around .050 of preload cold. The 2110r called for around the same preload but has .045 less total travel. Even the Morel drop in 6504/5315 called for around .050 pre load cold. You sure you didn't have the wrong amount of lifter preload ?Excessive valvetrain noise would be a prime indicator of this.

Everyone uses LS7 lifters because they are the most forgiving and have a wider sweet spot. .075-.100. so often times a pushrod that is close is good enough. Where with Johnson's you might need different length pushrods on the intake and exhaust... especially if the heads are ported and had a valve job done.

[cmitchell17]

Originally Posted by Katech_Mike

Hate to see it.

Sounds like you did everything right.

Possible bad heat treat on the camshaft?

So hopefully I can check hardness at work and will report back.

[cmitchell17]

Originally Posted by KingLT1

What was your actual lifter preload cold? I have been following 2110 lifter discussion for years going back over to LS1 tech and I swear the 2110 called for around .050 of preload cold. The 2110r called for around the same preload but has .045 less total travel. Even the Morel drop in 6504/5315 called for around .050 pre load cold. You sure you didn't have the wrong amount of lifter preload ?Excessive valvetrain noise would be a prime indicator of this.

Everyone uses LS7 lifters because they are the most forgiving and have a wider sweet spot. .075-.100. so often times a pushrod that is close is good enough. Where with Johnson's you might need different length pushrods on the intake and exhaust... especially if the heads are ported and had a valve job done.

So I emailed Johnson and told them I was shooting for 0.035 and they didn't correct me so I guess this is correct preload maybe not though.

So looking back on my notes you may be right, apparently I was shooting for around 0.050 because right now I am using a 7.750 pushrod, which gives me an average of 0.056, 7.725 would have been very close to nominal 0.035 Johnson recommendation though. I looked back on all my receipts and I think I tried pushrod lengths: 7.725, 7.750, and my original TSP 7.800. I sold all of them though and stuck with my 7.750s:



I think I was trying to increase the preload to make it quieter, but got tired of changing back and forth and just settled with the 7.750s. But you may be right maybe I had some other knowledge somewhere that 0.050 worked better than 0.035, either way its been too long ago to remember.

I am still looking for my preload measurements done just by the rocker arm screw finger tight method, then counting screw turns. I think preload measurement is very subjective from person to person and seems like it would also be very subjected to the state of the lifter height. In the case above all of the lifters would have had miles on them from the TSP cam and recently ran in the engine.

I really think I have more measurements I did with screw turns somewhere I just have to find them, but I think both methods were consistent though

[cmitchell17]

I forgot to add I also had slight PTV but on #2 and #4, no other pistons showed any marks at all:



So #4 intake cam lobe had the worst wear by far, but not necessarily the #2 intake or exhaust lobe. I am about to pull the springs and valves and check for broken springs or bent valves, but doesn't seem related if the wear was on the #4 intake but the exhaust valves are what is making contact.