[Cod322]

Hello, I Recently picked up a 2017 Zl1 with around 20k miles on it. Obviously worried/ Preparing for the oil pump failure. Already bought a Ktech pump and all the other miscellaneous parts to go ahead and do this myself. Well as I was looking at the car the other day I noticed the timing cover only has RTV sealing it and no gasket. My question is does the lt4 use a gasket from factory? If so I’m assuming that the timing cover has been off and the oil pump has been potentially changed already. Don’t have any record of it ever being done before just would hate to tear into if I don’t have too.

[RobZL1]

Nope. These LT motors use RTV from the factory. You can buy aftermarket options that use gaskets, though. Those usually have provisions for other things when you are doing a cam, though. If you are keeping it stock and just replacing the oil pump, I'd just reuse the stock cover with GM RTV.

Here are some photos of my rear cover with the RTV applied.

https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showp...&postcount=109

[ZLRob]

Originally Posted by RobZL1

Nope. These LT motors use RTV from the factory. You can buy aftermarket options that use gaskets, though. Those usually have provisions for other things when you are doing a cam, though. If you are keeping it stock and just replacing the oil pump, I'd just reuse the stock cover with GM RTV.

Here are some photos of my rear cover with the RTV applied.

https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showp...&postcount=109

Did you finally put your engine together and in the car or is it still out bro?

[RobZL1]

Man, it's still out. Made some good headway and now have the flu. I have the wiring harness all torn apart at the moment to remote mount the coils and hide some other stuff. As soon as that is done, the engine will be going back in. Maybe I'll be done before it gets too hot here in GA this year.

[ZLRob]

Originally Posted by RobZL1

Man, it's still out. Made some good headway and now have the flu. I have the wiring harness all torn apart at the moment to remote mount the coils and hide some other stuff. As soon as that is done, the engine will be going back in. Maybe I'll be done before it gets too hot here in GA this year.

Hey brotha, I'm not sure how you feel about it but you may want to consider changing that barbell back out again to a Derale unit because the Derale has a double seal built into it and based on the HP that you'll be making I'd rather see you have that over the single seal version due to the possibility of blowout due to seal failure from excess pressure. It happened to me on my Katech dual in tank pump (the fix was to move up from a single o- ring seal to a double o- ring seal) and I know it's not an apples to apples comparison obviously, but it does have to do with seals, o-rings, and the issue with single vs. double redundancy.

[bishopts]

Originally Posted by ZLRob

Hey brotha, I'm not sure how you feel about it but you may want to consider changing that barbell back out again to a Derale unit because the Derale has a double seal built into it and based on the HP that you'll be making I'd rather see you have that over the single seal version due to the possibility of blowout due to seal failure from excess pressure. It happened to me on my Katech dual in tank pump (the fix was to move up from a single o- ring seal to a double o- ring seal) and I know it's not an apples to apples comparison obviously, but it does have to do with seals, o-rings, and the issue with single vs. double redundancy.


Attachment 1173662

What kind of oil pressure would you be running to blow that seal out?

[RobZL1]

Yeah, I'm not pulling that cover back off. It would add, like, 9 months to my project. Lol

[ZLRob]

Originally Posted by bishopts

What kind of oil pressure would you be running to blow that seal out?

Just to give you an idea of the pressure that blew my ring out, it was only 80 and intermittent at that. The double stage oil pump is well capable of pushing that sort of pressure intermittently as well, and then add on to the fact that it's a narrow passage way and the ring is working that much harder to seal. I wouldn't want to risk it personally.

Originally Posted by RobZL1

Yeah, I'm not pulling that cover back off. It would add, like, 9 months to my project. Lol

Oh man... I totally get it, but yeah... The way above highlights how I feel about that sort of stuff. I deal with all that stuff the day I take it all off so I'm a little bit of a different builder situation than yours I see.