I'm looking to start buying ls engines and was wondering if there's a limit to how high of miles is worth rebuilding. This may be a stupid question if it is I'm sorry. I've done alot of looking and haven't found any answers. I have an lm7 with 185k already. I've got lines on a couple lq4s with over 200K and was wondering if they're even worth buying. Thanks in advance!

 

What is your plan? Rebuild and sell?

You can't really use mileage alone to determine the condition of an engine. Some will look great at 200k and others will be trashed. You won't know until you tear into them.

 

To me, mileage doesnt really matter. Seen plenty of 200k+ motor swapped in without issue before.

 

I have 195K on my LQ4. I put heads and cam on it around 180K miles and noticed some slight yellow on the cam bearings but it is STILL running. Had to replace some gaskets and seals. Knock sensor harness. Easy stuff.

If it is from a 2005 or later I would say go for it if you can get it on the cheap and don't plan on investing much.

If you can pop the valve covers off maybe that could hint if they abused it or took care of it.

 

I would say as long as the engine is in good condition and taken care of, why not.
You can have a 120k mile engine that was trashed and never maintained, as opposed to a 200k engine that was maintained correctly, which would you choose?
It all boils down to the individual engine itself, I wouldn't pay much attention to the mileage as I would the condition of internals.

 

I have to agree with everyone else, my current 4.8 has almost 255K miles and runs like a champ. Uses no oil, runs cool, etc. Only has a slight lifter tick on cold mornings. The 5.3 in my father's Sierra has around 60K miles and uses a quart of oil between oil changes.

 

My plan is to ls swap a couple of my trucks. My problem is anyone who has the engines pulled wants a fortune for them. So the ones I'm looking at are still in vehicles. Obviously I can't pull the head on a vehicle that I haven't bought yet. Basically I Wana know if I pull them apart and they need it will a high milage Block be rebuildable? I mean if it's running it obviously doesn't have a rod through the block or anything.

 

if your plan is to rebuild it, mileage doesn't really matter. either way you really wont know until you tear into it, have seen running engines that ended up not worth the time or money to rebuild, and non running engines that needed something simple

 

We can't give you a yes/no answer to that question. I'd say there's a good chance that you could get away with a rebuild without any machine work. But once again, neither you nor any of us know the condition of the engine.