I doubt he pulled the pan for a before. but just seeing the middle clean and outside normal looking vransh says a lot.
Valvoline Restore & Protect experiment
- Thread starter the blur
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I doubt he pulled the pan for a before. but just seeing the middle clean and outside normal looking vransh says a lot.
Marky Dissod
Full Access Member
'Too far before' would be a brand new engine, of course.
To steelman the argument, the LONG-TERM goal is an engine that looks brand new.
Keep using it. That's what I'm gonna do.
To steelman the argument, the LONG-TERM goal is an engine that looks brand new.
Keep using it. That's what I'm gonna do.
No before picture needed if you've ever cracked open an LS engine. Normally well before 100,000 miles it has that nice gold hue to it. Nothing wrong with that, pretty normal. And if there's been any lapse in oil changes, especially if not using synthetic, it's pretty common to find some sludge the very bottom of the oil pan. Sometimes baked on really hard. For the mileage on this motor, it actually looks really good inside. The evidence for the Valvoline is the areas that are too clean.... You would never see those even on a well-running engine as this was. The heads were also quite clean, while the push rods themselves didn't appear to benefit from the Valvoline. The lower half of the push rods definitely had some carbon build up on them. No extremely clean areas on them. Nothing remarkable about the lifters. They basically looked like they should. The inside of the timing cover tomorrow should have something to say, with a chain slinging the oil around the inside of the cover.
By the way, that clean streak from the front of the oil pan? Really made me wonder about the oil pressure relief valve on the oil pump, and how much oil it dumps out. The o-ring on the pickup tube was pretty well squared out. Pick up to freely dropped out of the pump..... With the o-ring staying put up in the pump. Here's a couple different angles of that o-ring, along with a comparison of the new OEM one will be installing.
By the way, that clean streak from the front of the oil pan? Really made me wonder about the oil pressure relief valve on the oil pump, and how much oil it dumps out. The o-ring on the pickup tube was pretty well squared out. Pick up to freely dropped out of the pump..... With the o-ring staying put up in the pump. Here's a couple different angles of that o-ring, along with a comparison of the new OEM one will be installing.
Tonyrodz
Resident Resident
So oil pressure was still good? Or a little low?
He was running between 15 and 20 psi hot oil pressure at idle coming off a freeway run. Said it was running 31 PSI at 70 mph. So I'd call that on the low side. (Although GM might disagree) As part of his AFM delete, will be plugging the oil pressure relief valve in the pan and going with a Melling 10296 with the +10 PSI spring installed. He's keeping VVT, so we have a GM OEM L92 camshaft ready to go in. We already plugged the oil towers with steel plugs, and he bought a flat valley cover. He turned off his AFM with a Diablo tuner about a year ago, so we're just doing the hardware change. The condition of the cam bearings will determine if we end up pulling the motor. (Which is really easy to do with the heads off. Those top bell housing bolts are like right there.) His LS7 lifters with the gold clips arrived last week..... We're holding off on pushrods till we get some measurements after bolting the head down.
You know, I'm always reading about people doing their AFM delete in the driveway..... Weather permitting, it's doable. But we're in a semi rural area and most of us have at least a two-bay shop. And the other Bay has two sawhorses with two 4-ft x 8 ft sheets of plywood with all the new parts laid out, as well as a lot of parts that came off. The space requirement to do this takes up some real estate if you want to stay organized, and have a couple workbenches to use for things like replacing the rocker arm trunnion bearings, and replacing the u-joints in the front drive shaft while you have it out. So a driveway is doable, but you want the space in the garage to lay out all your parts and stay organized. He's a body man by trade, so in exchange for doing this with him we're going to paint my Jeep CJ7 
I'm real curious to open up his oil pump relief valve. Many times I found the OEM relief valve has what appears to be casting sand collected in it.... In many cases it has either resulted in the relief valve sticking and losing oil pressure, or doing so intermittently. It reminds me of the problem Ford had with their 6.0 powerstrokes and casting sand collecting in the oil cooler housing. Basically from not cleaning the blocks off well enough before assembly. I'm curious if the Valvoline cleans well, how much crud will be in that relief valve? Will know tomorrow....
The real estate I was referring to and trying to keep organized for an AFM delete:
Clearly do not use your wife's kitchen countertops or dining room table.... There's a bunch of other stuff on the floor like the front differential, exhaust manifolds, the old radiator which is getting replaced, alternator, crossmember and oil pan.
Everyone likes pictures, right? Here's what one of the roller lifters looks like on the roller. 192,000 miles, still looks good.
Clearly do not use your wife's kitchen countertops or dining room table.... There's a bunch of other stuff on the floor like the front differential, exhaust manifolds, the old radiator which is getting replaced, alternator, crossmember and oil pan.
Everyone likes pictures, right? Here's what one of the roller lifters looks like on the roller. 192,000 miles, still looks good.
