haha, not quite...

7600 miles on the new engine in 14 months for a total of $2761.18 in gas...

 

I was re-reading your post about your engine build and I saw were you said the block was Milled wrong.

Just to let you know, I had a block that went through the machine shop recently and they assembled it to check the deck height as I requested the block be decked a specific amount. They found the deck height was off side to side and would not clean up within what I specified.

I believe in your case, they only cleaned up the decks on your block and that they were off to begin with from the factory.

My first block was lower on 1 side then the other from the factory. It also had a low spot on the low side. My second block was within spec and cleaned up nicely.

 

how far off was the deck height on your OEM block?

Either way, this shop was paid to "set the deck to -0.010" with my specific pistons. This is above and beyond a standard clean up mill, and something with a clear target which was missed. Even the Potak book says anything over a 0.002" differential (0.007" in my case) should be corrected.

I think the different thickness head gaskets has alleviated the issue, I can't see any real downside to it in the long run.

 

When measured, the factory pistons were around +.007 out of the hole on one side and like +.013 on the other side. The deck with the low side had a low spot in the center of the deck. I was going to end up between+.020 to +.025 out of the hole by the time we squared up both decks evenly. My Machinist even rebuilt he's Block decking machine thinking there was something wrong with it.

I guess he did a light cut on the one side and when he rotated it over it wasn't even touching the other side.

I only wanted to be around +.010 out of the hole.

I would have bought Cometec head gaskets but my machinist didn't want to mess with the block. I purchased a replacement.

 

wow, that is interesting. I have another LQ4 engine yet to be assembled, and the OEM rotating assembly was all relatively consistent +0.011" (in the hole), and I thought that was pretty standard for OEM.

 

The stock blocks I personally have checked were .005 to .009 out of the hole.

4.8/5.3, 6.0 iron and LS2 block.

 

Talk about a detailed post! Had to have taken hours to write all that up! Lol. Nice build

 

thanks man, it was a time consuming project that's for sure.

 

Latest oil analysis. Wear metals are dropping still.

 

Rezin,

Which alternator are you running here? The pulley looks to be overdrive.