He took it all to VA Speed so I assume they are doing it.

 

ah ok i didnt read that next post

i was told nobody around here did it anymore

 

I strongly reccomend you get it honed with a torque plate. Those cylinders are garanteed to be egg shaped from the factory. The result is using oil under high RPM on de-accel and smoking. Ask me how I know. As far a decking the block, you don't have to. I didn't on mine and just used a razor blade very carefully to get the gasket parts off. At any rate, once you get the rotating assembly back in it you are going to want to check how much your psitons are out of the hole at TDC. This will help you select head gasket thickness and that determines squish clearance along with how far the piston is out of the hole.

 

What makes you say the cylinders are "egg shaped from the factory"? Oil consumption on LS1s is predominately due to the PCV system pulling oil from the valve covers. This is why the LS6 moved the vent to the valley cover under the manifold. The other issue was the lower tension oil control ring in the 2001 motors. For 2002 they modified the ring package and solved the issue. My car was re-ringed and uses maybe 1/2 quart between 5000 mile changes. It used to eat a quart every 1000 miles.

I've never heard anything at all about new motors having bad cylinder bores, or even them wearing oval over time. The only time that seemed to be an issue was in the early stroker kits. The excesive piston/rod angle was causing side loading at the bottom of the stroke and would wear out rings and ovate the bore.

That said... since you've got it this far torn down and the motor was so nasty inside might as well do it right and do it once.

EDIT: I've done lots of sustained high RPM driving with my LS6 and my father and have been around lots of HPDE LSX people. Very few have oil consumption issues once the PCV system is addressed and a catch can added.

Some people w/ aftermarket heads seem to have issues as the oil gets hung up in the heads with extended high RPM used and side G-forces, but drilling the lifter trays really helps that.... but again it's the rarity.

Smoking on decel is typically the PCV system gulping oil into the intake manifold.

 

The engine that was in my car from the factory smoked it's ass off on de-accel at the track. It wasn't uncommon for it to use a quart at a track rental. Didn't use it in normal driving. It has the LS6 valley cover and PCV catch can mod too. The engine I rebuilt that is in the car now had egg shaped bores before it was machined. It too was a factory block. It is a known fact that GM did not use a torque plate on the LS1's when they were building them. When I dropped off my LS6 intake with the OP I discussed this with him and he even mentioned see vettes that smoked on de-accel at track events that he was at.

I agree that the low tension oil rings were an issue also but not the main culprit. My car has Mahle rings in it now, forged pistons and was torque plate honed and uses ZERO oil, even at the drag strip under de-accel after a pass.

Bottom line, if you have it ripped this far apart, spend a little extra money and get some good machine work done. It makes a difference.

EDIT: With the engine apart the way it is now he can check for ovaling of the cylinder. All he needs is an inside micrometer and take measurements parallel to the crank and perpindicular to it in a given cylinder. Take them in three vertical locations in the bore. The measurements should be the same if there is no egging.

Waiting for Big Bake to chime in here....

 

Interesting... I've never had an issue w/ it and followed lots of corvettes around a race track and can't remember any shitting oil on decel. My buddy's Viper does it bad, but that's because he doesn't give a shit and hasn't put a catch can on it so it pulls oil into the manifold on decel.

 

I have seen other street cars that did it, I believe Trent's car did it before the engine he has in it now. I have also seen some that didn't do it at all. My awesome luck is I get a car that does it and the only way to get it to stop is rebuild the engine. It is strange, the car was still making good power, hell it trapped almost 120 mph but smoked it's ass off.

Lesson for OP, it costs nothing to check clearances and dimensions as long as you can get a hold of the measuring equipment and can save you some headache later on.

 

nice its no dsm but its def nice

 

Once I looked at the crank I decided I needed to have it polished. At that point I went ahead and decided to get rid of the shitty heads and take the block and crank to the machine shop. The block is getting the full treatment including a diamond hone and new cam bearings. Apparently the diamond hone is good for 15hp right off the bat. Also decreases the bed in time for the rings to about 100miles. So I won't have to spend as much time on the dyno. Very very expensive tool though. The crank wasn't as bad as I thought so I should be able to use standard size bearings after it's polished. I hopefully will be getting it back tomorrow so I can assemble everything this weekend.

 

The Z06 my buddy owns blows oil on decel.