'06 Quicksilver Z06

On the contrary. I'm encouraging you to speak. You don't seem to have had a problem coming into this thread and speaking against the methods described in this thread so far.

I have now asked you twice, why a person such as yourself, whose car never has seen redline, would be concerned about this matter?

In addition to that, you are in warranty too, and at a time when many in this discussion, and who are interested in what Howie has done, and his experience, are not in warranty.

Those people are at risk. You, well, not so much. So let them benefit from the thread writeup, pictures, the thread in general. This is more of a potential issue for them, than it is for you.

Also, why should anyone who has had this procedure done, and who does see redline, take into account what you have to say about this matter when it comes to protecting themselves from dropped valves?

Because in a roundabout way, to let you tell it, Howie just wasted his money,.... because Richard does not know the "root cause". So following that line of reasoning, Howie STILL has a problem. Because according to you, the "root cause", has not been identified and addressed. That is the part I take issue with. Especially when you cannot point to any failures in heads done like Howie's.

Furthermore, I asked how you will know, i.e. what test will you use to determine, if this "root cause" you keep talking about has been found? You still have yet to answer that. But you claim that an attempt is being made to deny you the right to speak. The floor is open to you. Please explain what testing procedure you will use to positively identify, and let you know beyond any doubt, that you have found, what you call "the root cause."

In further encouraging you to speak, I would again request that you produce some credentials and/or proven results in anything related to high performance cylinder head design.

Because you see at this time, we have the comments of Richard, owner of WCCH, and one of the most respected cylinder head professionals in the GM performance community, on one side,........ and then, well, we have yours on the other.

So we have an idea of Richard's credentials and background with regard to this matter, yet we don't know yours. So again, I am requesting that you speak.

Perhaps if your background and expertise are more impressive than his, with regard to actual proven results related to high performance cylinder head design, and racing, then it could well be that we are going about this the wrong way, and should actually be listening to you, when it comes to this matter, instead of him.

So I'm requesting that you post up credentials indicating that we ought to be listening to you, instead of him.

But at this time, well, you have not produced any credentials which would warrant us listening to you.

And worse yet, you show no indication of your car even ever having been in an environment which would put it at the greatest risk of suffering a valve failure.

Yet you are in here, speaking as an "authority" on this issue, and attempting to insult those who disagree with you.

Mark2009

Well, from this gem I can only assume that your argument is that:

1. Only cars that see redline drop valves.

2. Only cars that see redline experience abnormal valve guide wear.

Care to flesh out those arguments with details?

Please... spare us the low hanging fruit

Mark2009

Yeah, right

The modus operandi of the Solid Stem Stainless Steel Squad has clearly been to discredit anyone that does not subscribe to the SSSSS theory of shotgun replacement of factory components.

They can't tell you why the factory components are bad, only that they need to be replaced. This is, of course, the roots of fanaticism. Don't think, just do.

Couple this with the repeated and blatant personal attacks on anyone who does not subscribe to their theory and you have fanaticism that morphs into fascism. Submit, or you will be assimilated. Borg 101, for Star Trek fans.

A case study in groupthink. Do what I tell you to do. Do not dare ask me why you should.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Ah, just as I thought. so you don't really have any concerns about dropping a valve.

Because you are at little to no risk of dropping one. This is why you don't call and ask professionals. You have no risk. So you have the huge luxury of "talking" and "theorizing".

This thread discusses what some of us have elected to do about the LS7 valve matter.

If you disagree with the soundness of the approach, well then it would help to include credentials you might have which make you qualified to dispute it.

Mark2009

You are way out in la-la land, constructing a reality that I guess is important to you but has no relation to the real world. Have a nice trip

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Well then I must be in the right place for finding this "root cause" you keep talking about.

Howie posted up a thread showing his tour of the WCCH facilities.

If you want to go on about "root causes" well then why not go back to the "root cause thread", and discuss that.

Because this one is for enthusiasts who are interested in what Howie had done, and might be considering it for themselves to protect themselves and their cars against dropping an exhaust valve.

For people who are interested in what WCCH's approach to this matter is, and what types of results they are getting.

This isn't the "root cause" thread.

Mark2009

Why do you fear the root cause?

Why do you diss those that are searching for it? Even in a thread that is not intended to discuss it?

'06 Quicksilver Z06

You still keep talking about this "root cause" as though it were some amulet.

The point is, many, more qualified than you, have already theorized as to what the "root cause" or "causes" is/are, and have addressed what they they believe it/them to be. Chad has already pointed to two.

Howie and SS MPSTR have pointed to the following:
And their methods of addressing it, or them, has worked......And that fact, is completely lost on you.

You guys are beyond strange in your thinking on this.

You keep talking about this "root cause", and then you offer no method which you plan to use, in order to demonstrate that it is in fact this "root cause" which you are looking for.

You're looking for something, and you don't even know what it looks like. You cannot even tell us what it looks like. How do you plan to first, identify it, and then verify that it is the "root cause"? You cannot not tell us how you plan to make a "positive ID", of this "root cause" you keep talking about.

You are merely grasping at straws, and looking for theories which run counter to those already out there, which when addressed, typically mitigate the biggest associated problem, which is valve failure. For some of you, a thread could be put up right now, saying that a "positive ID" has been made as to the "root cause", and as long as it went counter to the theories already presented here in this thread, and elsewhere, many of you would buy into it...only because it was a different theory.

As I said earlier, this is why infomercials work.

For some strange reason, a scarcity of failures over a period of several years, in cars which have had the living crap beaten out of them, 9 second cars, 10 second cars, road course cars, means absolutely nothing to you all.

It is the strangest thing I have ever seen.

Then you want to point to 150-200K mile cars which have never been on a track before as "proof" of the reliability of the stock LS7 valve train.

SS MPSTR

Almost...the valve gets coked with oil, hangs open and gets a sanctimonious kiss from the piston. This is what does in the exhaust valve. The sodium filled valves themselves are not the problem, nor is fuel octane, nor is valve train geometry.

The wiggle and coking are symptoms caused by a worn exhaust guide (both valve and guide, really, but the exhaust valve material and temps are problematic) that is too short by ~0.200". Push a long rod through a short sleeve and movement (binding) against the ends of the sleeve are going to happen - especially when the valve is being pushed by the long sweeping pad of the rocker arm. Heat is the result of friction (binding). The heat generated by the galling (and removal of guide material) eliminates the cooling characteristics the valve is supposed to have, and coked oil builds up, ultimately causing the valve to hang up in the PM guide - as a direct result of the coking and expansion of the respective metals.

There is obviously a lot more technical discussion about this to be said by better qualified people (hey, I can talk about how to build buildings all day with anyone - engine cylinder head design, not so much), but this is how I understand the problem.

For anyone who thinks that because GM only included '08 and newer cars as having a potential guide issue in their statement issued several weeks ago - because there is some other cause that the older cars are not subject to (e.g. something other than faulty length guides) - do not understand warranty exposure and corporate liability statistical risk analysis.

SS MPSTR

Not attacking you (and certainly not trying to beat anyone into compliance here), but a genuine question: what proof would you need, and by whom, in order to "accept" the longer bronze guide and stainless steel exhaust valve fix? Have you honestly discussed this with anyone knowledgeable about the topic (e.g. Katech, Advanced Induction, WCCH, any other of the upstanding forum vendors)? You keep asking for proof, and equally discredit those who propose the "fix", but I have not seen anything from you that indicates that you have any meaningful information that contradicts the information being provided by those who are, in fact, qualified. WCCH has stated the guides are too short. Do you have information that they are not?

Are you waiting for GM to come out and detail the blunder they made on a fairly significant number of cylinder heads fitted to our beloved LS7's? You might be waiting a long time. We know that the guides are too short - if you're waiting on a reason why they are too short, I don't think we'll ever know the answer to that.

z0sicktanner

very well could be. because this didn't happen to the ls6. parts used like the powdered metal guides, sodium exhaust valves. only diff is the 15" valve angle vs the ls7 12" also ls7 exhaust valves are longer than the ls6 as well

'06 Quicksilver Z06

You pointed this out before.

Yes, the LS6 used sodium filled valves, but they were shorter, and the LS6 made 100 fewer horsepower than the LS7.

The LS9 valve is also shorter than the LS7 valve, and I believe has a narrower head.

Well put, and it will be interesting to see what his answers to your questions will be.

Dirty Howie

I am hoping that the fix is simply reworking the heads by a very good shop like WCCH. GM has stated that machining of the guides has been identified as the problem (IE not a shop comparable to WCCH). The valve job and concentricity is determined by the honing of the guide. And if the guide is longer, that machining is more accurate as well. There is then less friction and heat. WCCH guides clearance is .0013-.0015". When this precise machining is matched up with parts which are less likely to fail like SS valves and dual spring I think we might have a fix.

This is just my understanding from talking to Richard and putting together everything I have absorbed about this issue.


DH

z0sicktanner

I ment to post this in my last post.. the reason i think the valve is breaking because when you look at the wiggle room test and see that much slop on a hollow valve i tend to think it just snaps off.But mpstr made some great points

z0sicktanner

Your heads are fixed man

Dirty Howie

Thanks and lets hope so cause I plan to give them a hell of a work out over the next few years


DH

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Well Chad, what I'm seeing here is that some want so badly for this to be a geometry issue. They are convinced that it is.
I tend to believe that this is what motivates a lot of this talk about "root cause". They want so badly for the "root cause" to be geometry.

If it's a geometry issue, well then you just slap a set of roller rockers on it, and you are good to go. You don't have to pull your heads, or buy a new set like Howie did and send them out for expensive work like he has shown in those pictures. You don't have to replace your own or anything. If only this problem were so easy to fix. People want a cheap and easy fix.

So for some, any cause which is arrived at which is not geometry, is invalid. Unacceptable. Any fix which is going to go beyond pulling the valve covers, is going to be an expensive fix. People don't like expensive fixes.

But they run into a few problems with it as the cause, not the least of which, is when setups like Howie's are done, no effort is made to address geometry as a cause of the problem, yet and still the success rate following Richard's approach, where "correcting" "geometry" is not really in the game plan, is 100%.

Now some have tried to imply that the bad geometry is "inadvertently" corrected during some of the other work on the head.

But I can show you a couple of failures in here, where head work was done, guides were changed, and the stock exhaust valves kept, .....and the owner promptly went on to drop an exhaust valve.

So it is because of what you point out above, what MP SSTR mentions as well, and comments elsewhere, which indicate that the valves themselves are a huge player in these failures as well.

Or a "root cause" if you will. This is why they are changed.

In taking into account the success of these setups, particularly the ones from WCCH, I am more inclined to call this the "fix" than I am anything else which we have seen to date.

Parts of this thread though, demonstrate a tenacity among some in denying that, even in the conspicuous absence of failures.

I could see their points, if they were able to identify repeated failures in cars using these setups.

But they cannot produce them.

And so to that extent, it would have to be frustrating, to argue from the rooftops that it was not a viable fix, that it was the "shotgun approach", a "bandaid", and then not be able to point to multiple examples of failure. Indeed, not even be able to point to one. So you gotta know, that they are waiting with baited breath for failures to occur.

If it's the "shotgun approach" well then what was the collateral "damage"?

I have looked across this board locating the cars which are running setups identical to, or similar to Howie's.

Typically, not always, but typically, what I found, is that cars which are going to be driven hard, got these valves put into them. Cars which are going to see a lot of the strip or the road course.

That's checking the C6 Z06 Fast List internal engine mod cars, C6 Tech and Performance, the for sale sections, just about anywhere you can name.

So in that regard Howie, I think you have a solid setup. Your heads are fixed as well as they can be fixed Howie. Enjoy your car and let the others continue to look for whatever it is they are looking for

Rock36

I'm starting to agree, and from day one I noticed that the date range of the GM statement coincidentally aligned with cars that were still under warranty.

I always thought "valve sticking" issues in lycoming airplane engines were oddly similar to what we see have seen with the LS7. I had read this some time back.

http://www.sacskyranch.com/eng176.htm

It also mentioned solid stem valves in continental airplane engines did not show the same exhaust valve sticking problems.

Granted these are all airplane engines, but the article hits on all the same things: heat-path with a sodium-filled valve vs. solid, valve coking, guide wearing, valve-to-guide clearances, broken valve heads, etc.

Rock36

How could I forget? Nice pictures and presentation DH

Exhaust guide #1

OJCrush08

Thanks for sharing your on-site experiences with WCCH. The Brodix heads they built for me are still in the wrapper in my garage, but will be installed (weather permitting) in about two weeks with a host of other goodies. I have been impressed with WCCH throughout the whole process of my dealings with them and I am excited about what I will have once it is all done. I asked Richard to build me a set of heads like the ones he would build for himself, and I believe he did that. It wasn't cheap, but you get what you pay for (if you are lucky) and I will be keeping my Z for years to come.

Wish they were closer, I would have loved to get the tour you did.!