Crate Motor Experience

[miket]

As you all maybe aware, I recently installed a ZZ502 in my 71. Since questions come up about crate motors I thought I would share the experience.

To keep this short, as I could write a few pages....I purchased my completely built ZZ502 from Salle Chevrolet in Oregon. I purchased the deluxe version, which included everything from CARB to pan. It took just a few days to arrive. After carefully rounding all the external pieces needed like radiator, motor mounts, accessory pulleys and accessories, fuel pump...headers.... I took over to my mechanic (he has a bigger shop than I, and more time). After a few days and a shortened driveline, which was expected...,I was ready to pick up my truck.

After a few days of babying it a tad, I started to hear what I though was a fan belt or power steering pump squeak. Really thinking that’s what it was, I didn't pay much attention to it for a few days, however it really annoyed me because it was loud and for pete's sakes it's a new 502!

So I checked the belts, tightened them.....drove it....let a few other people listen to it...I tried belt dressing....finally I took the belts off and started the truck...it still squeaked.

From there I took it to 3 machine shops who use stethoscopes to listen to the squeak…. they all said lifters.

At this point I called Salle and talked with a person (who I will not name here) who walked me through a bunch of things to check that I already tried…. finally he mentioned that they may have to have it back to have them put it on the dyno…..on my nickle. This prompted a discussion with the owner days later who suggested I contact a mechanic he trusted close to me….which I did. The mechanic came out and gave me a laundry list of things to do before they would consider fixing the noise….as well I was told GM only warranty’s parts on these motors. Most of the items on the list had little to do with the noise I knew was coming from both cylinder heads of my brand new 502.

After several weeks and another thousand bucks I had it all finished….back to the mechanic I went….after staying on him like a bull dog, taking time off work to get my truck to him, he finally tore into it.

He found two things…the windage tray under the intake manifold might have been rubbing the pushrod and found slight scoring in the pushrod cups of two rocker arms. The tray was removed...rocker arms replaced. My bill was $90.

This is here for information purposes only…Sallee took care of me on this when GM basically wouldn’t. I did have to stay after them to get it done. To keep this from happening again, I would have Sallee break in my motor on their Dyno before they ship it. Especially if it’s a parts only warranty. This spanned April 03 until two days ago.