Grimlock

So every few weeks I read about a C5Z that breaks a valve spring. I know a few guys are replacing theirs as preventive maintenance. I am curious how common these fail, and is this something that really needs to be replaced in advance on a stock car? How commonly do these fail?

What are people's stance on this?

momo20

its a gamble really...most do it for that peace of mind ..i will am gonna do mine this winter

Grimlock

What is the failure rate on them? Is it a 1 in 50 car thing or what? And what would it cost to have a shop replace them, including the new springs?

Paul 75 L82

It's an easy job to change out the springs and doesn't cost that much either. Might as well have the peace of mind.

Grimlock

What are we talking about? $1,500 to do it?

JETninja

Springs can be had for $200. Add new gaskets for the valve covers, use of a tool to compress the springs and an afternoon. Maybe $300 or so depending on the springs...Shops charge $100-120 or so an hour, figure 3-4 hours book would be my guess.

If I had gotten an earlier car I would have changed them, but '04's are safe from what I know...

skyavonee

This is a good replacement spring for the stock cam: http://www.texas-speed.com/p-439-pac...ve-spring.aspx

MTPZ06

PAC springs have a great reputation.

About2Bite

If you do it yourself, buy THAT spring compressor

mph1972

I have swapped springs several times and it really is not that bad a job. I have a spring compressing tool, that acts as a rocker arm and I compress it, have a buddy use my magnet, grab the retainers and swap it out. I have it down to a science now and can do a how set, and have it all buttoned up in about 2.5 hours and running. As long as the hose I use doesn't give me troubles when I am ensuring air is being put into the cylinder to hold up the valves. I run COMP 918s on my stock setup, no issues. COMP had a short stretch of quality issues/concerns, but they since got that fixed. Honestly, for the price and the time it takes to do it, I would just do it and continue driving without having to worry to much about the concerns you are having.

- Micah

phinfan

In my research of these cars, it happened often enough to make me decide if i bought one in the affected years, i would have it done, unless the current owner had a receipt showing it had already been done.

The car i ended up buying was a 01 though, and they did not have that problem, due (i think) to a cam with less lift.

heavymetals

Getting ready to do mine and for more "peace of mind", am going to do this also:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-p...2-and-ls3.html

BlueTeamZ06

Agreed. I did it myself when I did the headers and the headers were four times harder. The springs were not a big deal. If I had it to do over again, I would buy the dual compressor pictured above to make it quicker.

If you get a wicked strong rare-earth magnet like the ones you take out of computer hard drives, you can stick it on the valve stem and it will catch the retainers every time.

If anybody has had it done at a shop, it would be interesting to hear what they charged.

ZeeOSix

I'm just finishing mine up on my '02 Z06 this weekend. Did PAC 1518 springs, new valve guide seals (OEM), Comp Cams Trunnion Kit and better pushrods. Should be no worries now.

Grimlock

I just asked this question of Rich ( richierichz06 on the forums ) who works at Able Chevrolet which is a shop that specializes in Corvettes. I drive 200 miles to get my car serviced by them. He is also a prior owner of a C5 Z06 and current owner of a C6 Z06. He said that in all of his years of working at Able and at another Chevrolet dealer, he has seen a single valve spring failure ever. He said he works on countless race cars, etc...and only one failed ever. He said he didn't want to tell me not to swap them out just in case they did fail, but his attitude is that the failure rate is maybe 1 on 2,500 cars.

bumble-z

They don't even make the LS6 motor any more.
If that motor blows over something as simple as a v/spring replacement,
your going to kick yourself.
Get your A-- down to a shop, if you can't do this simple job & have your springs replaced.
From one 03 Z owner to another.

Woodytick

guys i can tell you from my own expeience. if you are stil running the stock springs, dont take the chance. change them as soon as you can. 2 months ago i had a spring failure & it reaked havoc on my engine. it put the intake valve from #5 down through my piston & destroyed the head. i spent close to $2800 rebuilding my engine but that was with a few upgrades as well. like & cam & LS7 clutch package.

dont take the chance guys, replace them & be done with it.

ZeeOSix

It happens quite often it seems as seen on various chat boards. Not sure why shops claim they never see any cases of broken springs. Here's another one that just showed up. Read the first 3 sentences. Also, there have been dozens of reported OEM spring failures on the board alone. Don't play Russian Roulette ... could be costly in the long run.

http://ls1tech.com/forums/generation...-question.html

98DC231

While its probably a good idea to get them done as a preventative measure, its easy to see why the problem is so "rampant".

Thing is, with the internet, people typically are only going to go and make a thread if they have an issue, so of course when you search it, the problem seems like an epidemic. Combine this with people who know little about cars and you start getting "automotive hypochondriacs" who think their car suffers from absolutely all "known issues" for a given car.

Nobody makes threads saying "valve springs all good here, no issues" to offset the people who experience an issue.

That said, I'm still doing it to my 02.

ZeeOSix

Rampant or not ... it's obvious that it can happen by the dozens of reports over the last few years seen on just this board alone. There are probably also cases that have never been mentioned on a chat board because some people just don't hang out on them. It's still puzzling that many dealerships don't mention that they have seen cars come in with broken valve springs. Maybe GM has paid them "hush money". Plus, there are a lot of guys who work on their own car, so maybe they just fixed it themselves ... that's what I would do.

I wasn't going to wait around and take chances to see if I was lucky or not with an issue like this. If it was a failure that wouldn't result in a destroyed motor than I'd probably take my chances. But in this case, the resulting consequences outweigh the risk of doing nothing by a mile.