rbartick

I am the original owner of a 2002 with 16,000 miles. The build date on the door is 02/2002. Everyone was making me nervous so I swapped my springs for:

12499224 LS6 LS2 LS3 Valve Spring Kit
12482063 LS Intake Valve Seal Kit
12482062 LS Exhaust Valve Seal Kit

* Put Cyl # 1 @ TDC and did # 1 and # 6.
* Rotated the crank 90 degrees and did #8 and # 5.
* Rotated the crank 90 degrees and did #7 and # 4.
* Rotated the crank 90 degrees and did #2 and # 3.
* I pressurized the cylinders with 90 PSI of air.

apollo240

Dont feel bad. Im pissing away 600ish on new ones. Mines an 02, build date 03/2002 and the stories got to me too.

racebum

i did the exact same thing with my car, wasn't worth the risk

i have an early 02 and it came with bare springs with orange dots, yellow seems to be the most common. i notice in the spring thread early 02s seem to be a lot less failure prone, wonder if i had different springs than who gm used to make the yellows. i changed mine at 95k and none were broke

first time i had done an LS valve spring change, had a friend help since i wasn't sure what i was getting into. was floored at how easy it was, nothing like a gen 1 SBC where you have to set the rockers

dagon138

If anything try and convince yourself you did it for the re-sale value....

My springs were replaced out at 72,000 because of a cam upgraded/headwork.
All of them were fine though.

edit: Color were yellow, sticker on door says 5/02

Atok

The yellows sure seem to fail more often based on the posts I read here. Wise decision to swap them out.

rbartick

* Finding TDC. Cyl # 6 is coming up on exhaust (shown below). Cyl # 1 is coming up on compression.



* Changing seals



* Pressurizing cylinder



* Old seals



* Proform spring tool



* Rotating crank

racebum

the early 02 spring {i think} ?

i had never seen these before



i went the same way as the op using these

GenerationX1

I have a VERY EARLY build date of 09/01 on my 02 C5 Z06 and my springs are yellow. I have 57K on mine.

TPA Z06

Getting ready to do mine as well. 2002 w/55K miles. 1/02 build.

neutron82

better to change them when they aren't broken rather than replacing your motor after one breaks

racebum

must have been right around the time of the switch, mine was 8/01

GenerationX1

Cool... yours is a month earlier than mine. Have you swapped yours out yet?

rbartick

* Almost done



* Done

racebum

oh yea, pictured above are my stock springs with the orange dots and the new $65 a set GM performance parts springs that went in

ZeeOSix

My 2002 Z06 was built 8/2001 ... it had all yellow valve springs. I bought it with 3 miles on the odometer.


"Replaced perfectly good springs"

Yeah, they are "perfectly good" until one snaps, then lot's of things could not be so "perfectly good" anymore.

Swapping out the valve springs on the 2002 & 2003 Z06s is a must IMO if you don't want to think about a crunched motor every time you take the car out for a drive.

Trash

Most new factory springs are blue, but not all. The color does not have everything to do with it. I bought new GM springs and they were yellow just like the ones that came out.

racebum

how recently? i would be worried honestly, all the new stock are blue. if you received yellows i would highly suspect new old stock

ZeeOSix

That's what I was thinking too. Wouldn't make sense for GM to paint the new/better OEM strings all kinds of different colors and have the same part number. Talk about confusion factor.

racebum

as far as i know they don't, all the ls2 springs have been blue. i have never ever heard of a yellow ls2 spring

yellow is most likely new old stock

Trash

Got them new from Gene Culley right here on the forum. New box in 2011.