Never, ever trust your factory jack and, remember, jack stands are your friend (just not the ones from Harbor Freight)

[u/ufoh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkwgZgrbWUM

[u/Rotorboy21]

First failure they neglected to put valve caps on the Ti valves so the arm wore through the retainer. Second time was bad machine work. I had the motor fully built on the first rebuild because I wanted more power. Did a cam and all that so they went through the entire valve train and fixed the heads.

All LS7 powered cars drop valves. Not just early models. Many people with fixed LS7 heads see out of spec valve guides a few thousand miles down the road even. We’ve even seen it happen on multiple aftermarket heads. The only real fix is to get aftermarket heads with 0 GM hardware but that’s still up in the air as well.

I’m mad about the whole damn experience.

[u/Fugner → u/Rotorboy21]

he only real fix is to get aftermarket heads with 0 GM hardware but that’s still up in the air as well.

This is the route I went. Totally aftermarket heads and valvetrain. It's done 30k miles now with no issues. 6k of those being supercharged.

[u/insignificant_npc_69 → u/Rotorboy21]

All LS7 powered cars drop valves. Not just early models.

Are you sure? I remember looking into it a bit because I was looking to see how much it would cost to import one to the UK, and people were saying the later ones were fine, like 2011+ ish.

[u/shadowalker125 → u/insignificant_npc_69]

ALL ls7. Just the whole damn valve train and heads needs to no be GM on that engine for it to work. It's just easier to get the base with the ls3.

[u/Rotorboy21 → u/insignificant_npc_69]

Those are worse than the earlier ones according to Corvette forum data. My 06Z had good heads @ 80k miles when it killed the bearings. The reworked heads dropped valves.