Discussion
When mine blows up (and it will, I'll never sell it and I abuse it) I'll just park it and build a monster motor 
that's a luxury though, can well understand the dilemma of having a broken car that's worth only slightly more than the cost of repair. Follow your heart 
Lingenfelter make a 24x to 58x converter box, so any old crate shouldn't be a problem
that's a luxury though, can well understand the dilemma of having a broken car that's worth only slightly more than the cost of repair. Follow your heart Lingenfelter make a 24x to 58x converter box, so any old crate shouldn't be a problem
You will have to excuse my ignorance what is a 24x to 58x box and how much are they.
I will follow my heart and put a new engine in, but what a dilemma.
Someone has a rebuilt engine for sale and it has been done with all the right bits.
Holmart have a brand new supercharged one, but that would hurt the bank account
and at this time of year.
I will follow my heart and put a new engine in, but what a dilemma.
Someone has a rebuilt engine for sale and it has been done with all the right bits.
Holmart have a brand new supercharged one, but that would hurt the bank account
and at this time of year.
Holden08rcy said:
You will have to excuse my ignorance what is a 24x to 58x box and how much are they.
I will follow my heart and put a new engine in, but what a dilemma.
Someone has a rebuilt engine for sale and it has been done with all the right bits.
Holmart have a brand new supercharged one, but that would hurt the bank account
and at this time of year.
https://www.lingenfelter.com/product/L460065397.htmlI will follow my heart and put a new engine in, but what a dilemma.
Someone has a rebuilt engine for sale and it has been done with all the right bits.
Holmart have a brand new supercharged one, but that would hurt the bank account
and at this time of year.
"This module is only designed for a newer engine with a 58x crankshaft trigger wheel and 4x camshaft trigger wheel going into an older 24x vehicle.
It will not convert the 24x crankshaft trigger signal to a 58x crankshaft trigger signal and no module exists to do this. You must physically change the reluctors in the engine."
You'll need one if you plan to drop an LS3 engine in place of your old LS2. Or you can ask somebody to use the old style 24x reluctor ring on the crank,
It's a minefield out there, especially when buying custom built engines, close to OE as possible is my advice, GM know what they are doing. Depending on where you are in the country, there are plenty of experts who can help you.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 24th November 17:41
Holden08rcy said:
You will have to excuse my ignorance what is a 24x to 58x box and how much are they.
I will follow my heart and put a new engine in, but what a dilemma.
Someone has a rebuilt engine for sale and it has been done with all the right bits.
Holmart have a brand new supercharged one, but that would hurt the bank account
and at this time of year.
It relates to the crank position trigger for the ecu.I will follow my heart and put a new engine in, but what a dilemma.
Someone has a rebuilt engine for sale and it has been done with all the right bits.
Holmart have a brand new supercharged one, but that would hurt the bank account
and at this time of year.
I'd be dubious of any rebuilt engine, unless it came from a proper reputable source. "the right bits".....is a very open ended and vague term, as some peoples interpretation of right, can be vastly different to anothers.
With a brand new crate though, it's pretty hard to go wrong. GM do build them right, with the right parts. Adding a supercharger would be a whole other minefield at this stage.
As said though, give Craig at Dynotorque in Birmingham a shout, he's a ton of experience with LS stuff, and may even have access to used parts.
I've recently been in exactly the same position, except I'd only just paid 15k for my 2007 VXR8 a few months before the valve spring failed and destroyed the engine. I dont think its too much to say that I was gutted, and what to do next was very difficult to work out as I'd spent all of my money buying the thing.
Failed single springs seem to be very common indeed.
Firstly, the LS2 that mentioned above isnt suitable because the Monaro LS2 had the wrong trigger wheel setup for the VXR8.
I spoke at length about that engine to the owner, its had a lot done and sounds a great engine but fortunately I learned that it wasnt suitable before I bought it.
In the end I paid a big wedge of cash for a used engine from a VXR8 that was crashed just after my disaster.
However, when all things are considered, i thought it would be silly not to change most of the gaskets and seals while it was out, and changed to BTR dual valve springs and pushrods, partly just for reliability, but also because I put the cam from the old engine in and it should really have had those things anyway.
This lead to the cost being so close to just buying a crate engine that my advice, unless you get a great deal on a used engine, would be to fit a crate LS3, it will fit straight in apparently and will just require some rolling road time to tune to suit the bigger engine.
Going the LS3 route will only cost a small amount extra but the value of the car will be higher with a zero miles LS3 in it.
I'd have gone this way but simply couldnt spend any more cash on it, the car stands me at a fortune now, just a year into ownership, at least yours has given you many years of pleasure, and soon can again.
Failed single springs seem to be very common indeed.
Firstly, the LS2 that mentioned above isnt suitable because the Monaro LS2 had the wrong trigger wheel setup for the VXR8.
I spoke at length about that engine to the owner, its had a lot done and sounds a great engine but fortunately I learned that it wasnt suitable before I bought it.
In the end I paid a big wedge of cash for a used engine from a VXR8 that was crashed just after my disaster.
However, when all things are considered, i thought it would be silly not to change most of the gaskets and seals while it was out, and changed to BTR dual valve springs and pushrods, partly just for reliability, but also because I put the cam from the old engine in and it should really have had those things anyway.
This lead to the cost being so close to just buying a crate engine that my advice, unless you get a great deal on a used engine, would be to fit a crate LS3, it will fit straight in apparently and will just require some rolling road time to tune to suit the bigger engine.
Going the LS3 route will only cost a small amount extra but the value of the car will be higher with a zero miles LS3 in it.
I'd have gone this way but simply couldnt spend any more cash on it, the car stands me at a fortune now, just a year into ownership, at least yours has given you many years of pleasure, and soon can again.
I also chose to do the engine work and swap myself, outdoors, to save money.
If you are mechanically competent its an option, they arent hard to work on.
Having a good idea of how much work is involved in doing this from experience, and knowing that a crate LS3 costs about £6300, I'd say that 10k is a bit steep.
A competent garage should be able to do the swap in 2 days max, and then the cost of a tune.
If they arent too far from you I'd be talking to AAS and getting the car shipped to them if the price is OK.
Mine is an auto, and from experience i can say that you can change the engine without disonnecting the aircon, power steering or taking out the gearbox or stripping the front off the car, I didnt even take the bonnet off. Might be different on a manual due to the bulk of the flywheel and clutch on the back of the engine.
If you are mechanically competent its an option, they arent hard to work on.
Having a good idea of how much work is involved in doing this from experience, and knowing that a crate LS3 costs about £6300, I'd say that 10k is a bit steep.
A competent garage should be able to do the swap in 2 days max, and then the cost of a tune.
If they arent too far from you I'd be talking to AAS and getting the car shipped to them if the price is OK.
Mine is an auto, and from experience i can say that you can change the engine without disonnecting the aircon, power steering or taking out the gearbox or stripping the front off the car, I didnt even take the bonnet off. Might be different on a manual due to the bulk of the flywheel and clutch on the back of the engine.
PWP List a basic LS3 crate at a little over £5800, and in stock in the UK. And some of the parts on it you probably wouldnt use. So may be able to sell off to recoup a few quid.
Likes of throttle, water pump, exhaust manifolds and maybe a few other odds and ends that may be sell-able off your old engine even if for small amounts of money
But as already said, it will require some wiring mods, it will require ecu tuning, it will likely also require the Lingenfelter box ( check what crank/cam triggers your existing car engine has )
But may be the more sensible option. And in general it is an upgrade all round anyway, so that too can make it the better choice.
Likes of throttle, water pump, exhaust manifolds and maybe a few other odds and ends that may be sell-able off your old engine even if for small amounts of money
But as already said, it will require some wiring mods, it will require ecu tuning, it will likely also require the Lingenfelter box ( check what crank/cam triggers your existing car engine has )
But may be the more sensible option. And in general it is an upgrade all round anyway, so that too can make it the better choice.
Although iron, and may require an inlet manifold...this 6.0 could well be a 24x engine
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chevy-L96-6-0-V8-Comple...
https://www.onallcylinders.com/2018/04/19/installa...
https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/8220...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chevy-L96-6-0-V8-Comple...
https://www.onallcylinders.com/2018/04/19/installa...
https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/8220...
mfp4073 said:
You have got to tell us all about this..... an LS3 Monaro = 
Oil issues and something letting go at around 6000 rpm ended my engine pretty swiftly, bent crank and mostly everything destroyed!I have had a LS3 built, with forged pistons, cnc heads, cam etc by Kyle Rushall. It is in the car and running however I have and when hot low oil pressure issue that I am currently looking into. Could be crappy reading on my stock oil pressure gauge. At the moment the reading is well within the tolerances by GM, Kyle has been super good and we are just taking precautions on the new engine given what happened to my last!
Build wise, you can pretty much have any LS based block (bar the LSA? someone correct me)
I didnt go with the GM LS3 crate motor mainly due to the fact the reluctor needs changing (58x to a 24x). You can get the LF boxes but most people I spoke with and even some suppliers said that they are pretty unreliable. Also cost, effectively part ex my heads and inlet from the old engine and also still sold the block on made it alot cheaper then straight out buying the crate engine. Mine has also made 580hp @ 6k on the engine dyno so far, and thats without a magic Luis tune
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/HP57xeKN[/url]
Edited by Phillphill on Monday 25th November 13:57
Phillphill said:
I have had a LS3 built, with forged pistons, cnc heads, cam etc by Kyle Rushall. It is in the car and running however I have and when hot low oil pressure issue that I am currently looking into. Could be crappy reading on my stock oil pressure gauge.
I'm sure you're well ahead of me here but as I have the same after my cam swap, things I have read:Oil pump o-ring
Oil pump pickup tube possibly obstructed
Too loose bearing tolerances (seems unlikely on a new build)
Cam retention plate (I'm suspicious it might be this on mine, as that's one of the few relevant bits I touched and I quite possibly didn't clean up the gasket before re-install)
Could get a used oil analysis, £30 or so to theoillab.co.uk, send them off a sample and see whether there's lots of wear metals in there (copper, aluminium etc.) to at least get an idea as to whether bearings are eating themselves
SturdyHSV said:
I'm sure you're well ahead of me here but as I have the same after my cam swap, things I have read:
Oil pump o-ring
Oil pump pickup tube possibly obstructed
Too loose bearing tolerances (seems unlikely on a new build)
Cam retention plate (I'm suspicious it might be this on mine, as that's one of the few relevant bits I touched and I quite possibly didn't clean up the gasket before re-install)
Could get a used oil analysis, £30 or so to theoillab.co.uk, send them off a sample and see whether there's lots of wear metals in there (copper, aluminium etc.) to at least get an idea as to whether bearings are eating themselves
Yep those are next on the list, story of it is......Oil pump o-ring
Oil pump pickup tube possibly obstructed
Too loose bearing tolerances (seems unlikely on a new build)
Cam retention plate (I'm suspicious it might be this on mine, as that's one of the few relevant bits I touched and I quite possibly didn't clean up the gasket before re-install)
Could get a used oil analysis, £30 or so to theoillab.co.uk, send them off a sample and see whether there's lots of wear metals in there (copper, aluminium etc.) to at least get an idea as to whether bearings are eating themselves
Stock dash gauge - Cold start shows over 3 bar, warmer the car gets the more it drops. My dash gauge was showing just over 1 bar at idle after a pootle down the road (not god in my view)
Popped in a test mechanical gauge (which leaks a bit!) Cold start shows nearly 4bar, as the car gets warmer (idling for around 15mins) it drops to around 33psi - I turned the car off at this point as i was gassing myself and dropping oil everywhere
I have fitted a stack mechanical gauge so I can atleast drive it and see whats going on, I dropped and replaced the oil, cut open the filter. Nothing untoward in either
So my plan is to see what the pressure does with a little more temperature in it with the new gauge, if it is still low then as you have said its sump off and replace O-ring, I have even bought one of the ICT billet tube clamps - if that fails i guess its engine out again
Hadnt considered the oil analysis, that could be an idea
To the OE member who posted, regardless of which way you go with the engine if you are handy with spanners swapping the engine really isnt too difficult.
The hard parts are (I found, gearbox fitting and actually hoisting the engine in), hooking up the wiring and installing all the parts back on are fairly straight forward
The hard parts are (I found, gearbox fitting and actually hoisting the engine in), hooking up the wiring and installing all the parts back on are fairly straight forward
[quote=Phillphill]
Oil issues and something letting go at around 6000 rpm ended my engine pretty swiftly, bent crank and mostly everything destroyed!
I have had a LS3 built, with forged pistons, cnc heads, cam etc by Kyle Rushall. It is in the car and running however I have and when hot low oil pressure issue that I am currently looking into. Could be crappy reading on my stock oil pressure gauge. At the moment the reading is well within the tolerances by GM, Kyle has been super good and we are just taking precautions on the new engine given what happened to my last!
Build wise, you can pretty much have any LS based block (bar the LSA? someone correct me)
I didnt go with the GM LS3 crate motor mainly due to the fact the reluctor needs changing (58x to a 24x). You can get the LF boxes but most people I spoke with and even some suppliers said that they are pretty unreliable. Also cost, effectively part ex my heads and inlet from the old engine and also still sold the block on made it alot cheaper then straight out buying the crate engine. Mine has also made 580hp @ 6k on the engine dyno so far, and thats without a magic Luis tune
Thanks for the update, it's interesting to see which route owners take when moding or repairing their cars.
Forgive me if you've already thought of this, but have you replaced the oil pressure sensor as these are known for failing.
My oil pressure dropped to zero at 60mph and gave me a moving heart attack!!!! I was on a dual carriageway at the time with nowhere to stop....that gave me a second heart attack!!!!!!
I replaced the sensor and all was well.
Oil issues and something letting go at around 6000 rpm ended my engine pretty swiftly, bent crank and mostly everything destroyed!
I have had a LS3 built, with forged pistons, cnc heads, cam etc by Kyle Rushall. It is in the car and running however I have and when hot low oil pressure issue that I am currently looking into. Could be crappy reading on my stock oil pressure gauge. At the moment the reading is well within the tolerances by GM, Kyle has been super good and we are just taking precautions on the new engine given what happened to my last!
Build wise, you can pretty much have any LS based block (bar the LSA? someone correct me)
I didnt go with the GM LS3 crate motor mainly due to the fact the reluctor needs changing (58x to a 24x). You can get the LF boxes but most people I spoke with and even some suppliers said that they are pretty unreliable. Also cost, effectively part ex my heads and inlet from the old engine and also still sold the block on made it alot cheaper then straight out buying the crate engine. Mine has also made 580hp @ 6k on the engine dyno so far, and thats without a magic Luis tune
Thanks for the update, it's interesting to see which route owners take when moding or repairing their cars.
Forgive me if you've already thought of this, but have you replaced the oil pressure sensor as these are known for failing.
My oil pressure dropped to zero at 60mph and gave me a moving heart attack!!!! I was on a dual carriageway at the time with nowhere to stop....that gave me a second heart attack!!!!!!
I replaced the sensor and all was well.
Phillphill said:
Hadnt considered the oil analysis, that could be an idea
I used the oil lab as mentioned above, they send out a syringe, tube, little sample jar etc. and return packaging, you get e-mailed results within a couple of days.The tube doesn't fit down the dipstick hole, so either some fun draining a bit out of the sump, or just send off when you do an oil change. When I changed mine I kept a litre to the side as I was planning on getting an analysis done to see.
I had high levels of copper in, but no other wear metals (which would be expected with bearings...) I'm thinking it may be the bronze trunnion bearing upgrade bits wearing, oil pressure will be lowest up top there, either way I'm using it as an excuse to pull the motor out and stroke it, so by most accounts it'll spectacularly lunch itself eating piston skirts and I'll be posting in this thread a few weeks in to the completed swap next year sharing plans of my next engine build
Still it's more fun than just immediately setting the money on fire so...
Phillphill said:
Oil issues and something letting go at around 6000 rpm ended my engine pretty swiftly, bent crank and mostly everything destroyed!
I have had a LS3 built, with forged pistons, cnc heads, cam etc by Kyle Rushall. It is in the car and running however I have and when hot low oil pressure issue that I am currently looking into. Could be crappy reading on my stock oil pressure gauge. At the moment the reading is well within the tolerances by GM, Kyle has been super good and we are just taking precautions on the new engine given what happened to my last!
Build wise, you can pretty much have any LS based block (bar the LSA? someone correct me)
I didnt go with the GM LS3 crate motor mainly due to the fact the reluctor needs changing (58x to a 24x). You can get the LF boxes but most people I spoke with and even some suppliers said that they are pretty unreliable. Also cost, effectively part ex my heads and inlet from the old engine and also still sold the block on made it alot cheaper then straight out buying the crate engine. Mine has also made 580hp @ 6k on the engine dyno so far, and thats without a magic Luis tune
There is nothing about an LSA block that would make it any less usable than an LS3 block for a build.I have had a LS3 built, with forged pistons, cnc heads, cam etc by Kyle Rushall. It is in the car and running however I have and when hot low oil pressure issue that I am currently looking into. Could be crappy reading on my stock oil pressure gauge. At the moment the reading is well within the tolerances by GM, Kyle has been super good and we are just taking precautions on the new engine given what happened to my last!
Build wise, you can pretty much have any LS based block (bar the LSA? someone correct me)
I didnt go with the GM LS3 crate motor mainly due to the fact the reluctor needs changing (58x to a 24x). You can get the LF boxes but most people I spoke with and even some suppliers said that they are pretty unreliable. Also cost, effectively part ex my heads and inlet from the old engine and also still sold the block on made it alot cheaper then straight out buying the crate engine. Mine has also made 580hp @ 6k on the engine dyno so far, and thats without a magic Luis tune
And yes, although the LPE boxes are an option.....they'd be pretty far down my list of choices. Correct trigger wheels only for the chosen ecu.
Although one thing you'd be pretty sure of with a brand new crate...no oil pressure concerns ! With any rebuilt option, there are a multitude of things that might cause oil pressure issues.
As to whether lower oil pressure is really a problem....harder question, especially when some of GM specs for oil pressure are pretty low.
Just repeating myself.
Following my engine destruction I investigated and asked a lot of questions, if I understand correctly the LS3 crate engine has the correct trigger wheels for the VXR8.
The confusion comes because the LS2 fitted to the Monaro has the earlier trigger wheel setup, both LS2 but some differences.
Do check this and make sure you are happy, but if its correct as I believe it is the LS3 is a drop in and go job, which you will need to follow with remap, but it will run and drive to your chosen tuner.
Following my engine destruction I investigated and asked a lot of questions, if I understand correctly the LS3 crate engine has the correct trigger wheels for the VXR8.
The confusion comes because the LS2 fitted to the Monaro has the earlier trigger wheel setup, both LS2 but some differences.
Do check this and make sure you are happy, but if its correct as I believe it is the LS3 is a drop in and go job, which you will need to follow with remap, but it will run and drive to your chosen tuner.
The internet is littered with forum posts where a certain brand of updated valve springs have failed on LSs, and if yours has a Monkfish cam, it’s likely these went into the build
The section here on valve springs is interesting:
https://www.oztrack.com.au/2013-09-27-06-14-12/ls-...
The section here on valve springs is interesting:
https://www.oztrack.com.au/2013-09-27-06-14-12/ls-...
Phillphill said:
bar the LSA? someone correct me
Not so. As I said already I have an LSA in mine albeit with a bigger blower. Here’s one with the standard LSA
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8dPWHrUA3Mg
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