I stumbled across this in the book, "how to build an ls engine."
I guess it would allow oil to drain back faster?
What do u guys think??

 

It has been talked about on here. Some seem to like the others and others don't. I do not have any experience with it. You would think GM would revise it if they saw it as a problem.

 

The oil flows over the top of the trays and down eventually so it's not a big deal. I did not do the drill mod when I built my engine, and am glad I didn't. I don't think having the lifters partially immersed is a bad thing.

 

I heard the same thing,only takes a few mins to drill eight holes,but from I remember, anybody remember wheel to wheel in michigan? I heard they only did it in over 700hp or high RPM builds,didnt want the oil to sit around a foam up, I also heard in all the dry sump builds people do it too.

 

Just be sure to put the hole side in the right spot or you won't get the benefit. There are numerous race shops that do this on every LS build.

 

I wouldnt use that as a pro/con of drilling the holes. There are many many thing that GM should have revised to fix issues but haven't or never did.

Plus, it may benefit in performance applications for oil flow, not for. 100k+ mile vehicle.

 

Of course if I were going in far enough to remove the lifter trays I would replace them with new ones if they had any age to speak of just to aid in them not loosing their grip on the lifters for if and when you might do another cam swap later on, but especially if I was planning on drilling the drain-back holes, as the new plastic is less likely to crack than older plastic that may have become brittle from age and engine heat.

 

Mixed reviews as I suspected...

@ 1bear, u can always use the dowel rod trick to make Sure the lifters stay up, that's what I recommend even if they are new trays, don't trust plastic to hold them....

 

I have not noticed a difference in the plastic composite trays on a 0 mile motors and a 180k+ motor as far as the plastic composite cracking.

Yeah it's a always a gamble spinning the bump stick and hoping the lifters hold.

 

I did this mod on my solid roller 383 lst and i guess the real benefit is keeping oil in the pan via quicker drain back and because the oil can stay in those trays at high rpm, It may help if you have a big hi volume oil pump on a ls engine that lives at 6500+rpm a lot but by then you should get tie bar lifters!
So although I think it doesn't necessarily "hurt" anything I believe the benefits for 98%yoau of ls engines out there are so minuscule you wouldn't waste the time weakening your plastic lifter trays JMHAO!