Originally Posted by BR3W CITY
Piston slap, while it does exist, occured in a fractional minority of the engines released. The issue was most prevalent on the all-aluminum early motors due to the metallurgy, and some of the 99-01 truck engines had the issues as well. Most of the time, the problems people label as "piston slap" really aren't.
The rod bolts is even more of a hit-or-miss issue. Again, it was mostly an early year issue. Most of the rod bolt failures that occured did not happen due to raw mechanical failure under normal circumstance. A large majority failed after having already been re-used, so failure to follow proper torque procedures added to the amount of sheared bolts. Additionally, most failed during high-rpm or sudden detonation situations...NOT failing under boost load. The sudden and impactful hit of nitrous, or the shock of detonation at high rpm are far more likely to destroy a rod bolt than boost.
Shortly after the issue was "addressed" circa 05-ish, stories still came out of wrecked rod bolts. The truth seems to be that the use, maintenance, installation and stresses all applied to the failure rate...and could pretty much do the same damage to any year. Anyone looking to go the the "next level" of mods should consider the upgrade as an option, but my no means an absolute requirement, regardless of year.
IMO, there are only 2 engines to avoid. The first one to avoid is any LS1 that you don't know the history of. Why? Due to the desireability of the "name", they are usually overpriced, well beaten, and are the oldest. These are the engines inhabiting the earliest f-bodies and corvettes, and have been treated as such. The 98's also have special wiring and ecm situations that makes them a pain.
The other engine, is the 99-00 first-run truck engines with the Iron heads. The weigh the most, the heads are inferior to any of the Aluminum heads, and again they are the oldest and most likely to have high miles. Also, the early trucks had a flywheel spacer built in, making it so the 4l80e is pretty much your only tranny option.
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