I wouldn't balance it with the clutch. Best to do the engine parts themselves and if the clutch needs work to do that separately.

As far as machine shops Rod Phillips is great, but afaik he doesn't do assembly, just the machine work. Nate would probably be your best bet to find a good LS dude.

I meant FW, but is the answer the same?

ls1z28 will do disassembly and can do the assembly, so that's not a big deal. Unless someone comes up with a "these guys are the best and reasonably priced" probably just go with Troy at FPS since the prices seem fine and the location is convenient.

I have an LS2 and a L76 rotating assembly right now. All stock crank, rods and pistons in the rotating assembly... If the damage turns out to be more severe let me know. I'll get you a good price on it if you need. They are just sitting here.

Yes, have the crank spun, and flywheel spun separately. I think Rod charged me, to deck the block, sleeve, hone, and balance for a total of like $450. Hes been doing it for 50 years so I'm sure that has alot to do with it.

Since the engine has to come apart, I'll at least drop in some new lifters. Since the heads are coming off, I'll at least drop in new (LS7) valves and *maybe* a new set of rockers.

What heads do you have? LS7 intake valves are 2.20 inches. They probably won't fit in the heads you have unless you have the valve seats machined. If you do rockers, keep your old ones and do the trunnion upgrade. That will extend the life of them considerably. The LS7 lifters are decent. I'd look into a set of slow leakdown lifters as they are less noisy as far as I've read and been told when emailing Brian tooley racing. If you have cathedral port heads on the car right now, you might want to look into trick flow 220 as cast heads with ferrea valves. That setup is highly recommended from many experts I've talked to about my builds. You may want to consider sending the heads to west coast cylinder heads. They do pretty good work.

These are the 4.8L truck heads, already heavily decked and ported by the time I got them, but I'm not sure what was done to them otherwise. It was a common Heads option in the late 90s for the LS1. I'll have the shop take a look and see what they think. I just happen to have a set of LS7 valves around here somewhere. If they're better than what's in and they can work without a ton of extra machining work, then I'll use them, if not, pan it.

I was going to go with Morel Link-Bar lifters per Guy's recommendation. They seem very well regarded and cheap enough at $400~ for a set. I'm not trying to sping up past 7k, I would however like to get to 6,200~ as quickly as possible.

Thanks for the guidance on the rockers.

The morels are some of the best lifters around. If you don't mind the extra expense over the ls7 lifters, I'd jump on them. The 799 truck heads are good basically the same as 243s on an ls6. If they have already been milled down, that might be where some of your knock issue is coming from. I might have access to a set of stock 243s or 799s. I'll ask my buddy that I work with flipping cars and motors with. He has a bunch of different heads. The ls7 valve are likely too big to be stuffed into those heads with a smaller bore motor. That's also the reason the LS7 head has a different valve angle than any other LS head... To fit the valves. If you do send the heads out, have the shop see how big the chambers are. If they have been milled significantly, I would say that is your likely culprit in your knock issue. I think in my thread you were saying you were having issues with that.

Are you running a 5.3/4.8 truck block? Or a LS1?

Just as a comparison.... Ls7 valves are 2.20, LS3 types are 2.165 and cathedral ports are 2.00. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it's part of the reason that rectangular port heads can't be used on a smaller than 4.00 bore block.

Just as a reference... GM makes a mini ls3 style head for a "small bore" LS1/6 block... It still uses the 2.00 valves

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/store...1&pgGrp=catNav

It's a 2000 LS1 block with a mod to make it like an LS6 block for oiling, though I forget exactly what that was.

They are DEFINITELY milled & ported 4.8L heads. Static comp is high for sure, *supposedly* 11.1:1 but who knows. I'll have the shop look at them and the block and calcuate what it is with the stock MLS gasket I was running. Might be surprised!

On 91 in the summer it knocks for sure, and ls1z28 said it was probably some detonation that started hammering on the rod bearings. As long as I run Torco, just a little even, it doesn't knock. I wasn't going to run a thicker gasket because I thought a better exhaust eliminating backpressure might fix the problem.