Thread: Connecting Rod Piston Rings

Are these the same for the LS4 as for other 5.3 engines?

Basically the pistons and rods are exactly the same depending on yr as I understand it 07,(some) through 09 with single bolt cam are gen 4 with flat top pistons and 05-07 with 3 bolt cams are gen 3.
Now a cording to research gen 4 rods stronger and heavier so I'd try to keep rods and crank matched up.
Pistons are flat tops over older 5.3 dish pistons so they are a bit higher in compression.
So far all I've seen are 243 heads on LS4 so Minus lightweight valves and stronger springs they are same heads.
According to parts book push rods are bit different so with cam install you might want to have few different lengths of push rods for adjusting preload.
Also never try to install stock non dod lifter on dod cams. Has oddball lobes and will run like a ****.
Now on that note you can go over to YouTube and look up Powell machine inc.
They do a regrind of the dod cams into a 500 lift torque cam which supposedly does not require new springs and will replace the dod cam with the delete kit, that means blocking the ports, removing the vlom, blocking the relief valve in the oil pan or replacing it with one of the LS4King/Moroso or LS4 King stainless oil pans.
You will also need to remote Mount the oil filter, my recommendation what I did on mine was I pointed my ports straight forward the block pointing straight down may be better depending on your mounting for the engine. I ran my oil filter adapter up inside the front fender on the left side there are actually holes there in the frame that I used self-tapping screws on and I use the Derale oil filter adapter that uses the large GM PF 1218 oil filter. It does add an extra quart of oil or 2 quarts of oil actually almost 8 quarts total instead of six running the large oil filter and I run it at an angle you have to drill one hole and you can use one of the existing holes in the frame rail and it sits in there very nicely then you just have to loosen up your lower plastic get in there and unscrew your filter and make your mess and the way you go.
If you're rebuilding the engine the easiest way to tell if you have gen 3 rods or Gen 4 rods is Gen 3 rods are pressed pin, and Gen 4 are free floating you take clips out and they slide right out. If you're building an engine go ahead and have the engine spun on a balancer and balance the engine. It's money well spent anyway. Don't worry about the crank the only difference between the crank is a spacer difference on the flywheel side and a different snout so it will fit in the frame rails. Otherwise the crank physically is the same casting or foraging or whatever that the other five threes are the only difference is the machining on the flywheel end and the balancer end.
If you're going for a rering Hastings or seal power speed pro Molly ring set would be ideal, just remember get a brm ball home 180 to 220 grit yo clean your block put a squirter motor oil my preferences good old-fashioned 1540 or 38 Shell Rotella use your two speed cordless drill on a slow speed and you're going to try and get that cross hatching you're going to put about two or three strokes in just enough to bring the metal up where it starts turning metal gray then start spraying it with brake clean on the fast speed give it to her three strokes with spraying brake clean while you're stroking very fast and getting that good cross hatching. Remember the cross hatch holds the oil while the rings seat in.
That's all they're there for. Once the rings have burnished into the cylinder walls everything smooths up this is why we change our oil filters really quickly after starting a new engine and do a short oil change. Also if you're going through the engine you're going to have a couple of oil filters and I recommend breaking the motor in on white bottle Shell Rotella 15w40 or 10W30 depending on the temperature. Once you put about 500 miles on it after the first oil filter change which is to get all the trash out of the system that got left over while you were building it and just catch all the crap that got left that you can't see. Then you can switch over if you want to run full synthetic my two preferences are mobile one full synthetic 5w40 or 5w50 if you can find it as your preference goes or my absolute favorite oil right now is the dark blue bottle of Shell Rotella 5w40 full synthetic T6, because you can get it for like $23 and change at Walmart for a gallon. The other cool part about the Shell Rotella is it carries the 1200 parts per million of zinc antiwear additives. Most other diesel oils have been dropped below the 1200 parts per million maximum because of the EPA b*******.
Not sure what the mobile one is but I've never been failed by mobile one in my other engine so take that for what it is. If you're building this engine good luck. The one thing you have to remember is you got to get rid of that intake and throttle body because the intake is a 60 horse reduction bolting it on pretty much a decently running 5.3. if you don't believe me go look up Richard Holdener on YouTube you did a dyno test with an LS4 intake and a 3800 throttle body because the 3800 throttle body is the exact same size as the LS4. It's been said that the LS1 was the worst intake the GM ever made for an LS, wrong the LS4 was. He had a 5-3 that I forget what came and had but it had a nice set of aftermarket heads on it, but the engine lost 59 horsepower just bolting the intake on. And I don't even think he used the ls injectors I think they were using the dynos 80 lb power injectors cuz that's what their computer was set up to run.
As for me I have a trailblazer SS intake as you can get them off of eBay with 50 lb hour injectors and a fuel rail and I believe the early version of the tbss intake as there's a early and late it just has to do with some of the vacuum ports. In a GXP or an Impala you will have to play around and see how much Hood clearance you have. I've been debating on taking my intake and smoothing it out like some of the others have been doing. Since I'm not going to go with boost that may be one of my pet projects before I change the intake. Now I have an 08 GXP, which means it's Gen 4 and I checked the plug on the throttle body and matched it up to an 09 GMC Sierra 5.3 6.0 throttle body. I got it cheap off of RockAuto and my assumption is that I should be able to plug it up relearn the throttle body with my scanner as I'm a automotive tech anyway and I'm done. 50 lb hour injectors if you follow the rule of thumb as Richard holder recommends and explains in one of his other videos should be able to handle 700 horsepower NA.
Ass pushing 500 to 600 horsepower on an LS4 would probably be at the forefront of most people's dreams remembering that these transmissions are glass and will break at the drop of a hat. Which is why the 4t80e is considered a great upgrade. And if you want to see how to swap one in without doing any reprogramming basically just doing some wiring work look up LS4 King on YouTube he has the diagrams and which wires you change and where you put the relay and all that. Now my car is no wait and the TCM is exactly the same as an 06 DTS Cadillac which I have a Cadillac TCM. So my theory is that as long as I get the wiring right I should be able to drop this TCM in adapt the wiring to match a Cadillac transmission and wow I'll lose my tap shift the Siri is that the serial data as long as I can change the VIN in the TCM without affecting the rest of the program should play nice with my car. And then use my HP tuners to dial in everything after that. Good luck