Well, the Gen3 copped heaps over the oil over consumption, but check this out. GenIII - I just don't want one! The Rods. The main caps and con-rods are made of compressed, sintered metal. Thus the rods cannot be resized. Basically they are useless unless left stock. The Block. The block is made to be as light and cheap as possible. Thus the cylinder liners for the bores are already in place on the mould-jig-thing and the alloy is poured around it. As the bores are the exact right size for the stock pistons, there is no need to use more metal than neccesary. As a result the block can only be bored out 10-thou! What about when the thing needs a rebuilt 10 years down the track? Jeez. But sleeves, I hear you say, chrome-moloy sleeves! Yeah, well, if you want to sleeve it, not only will it cost an arm and a leg, but most castings have considerable core shift, which makes fitting impossible. Plus, the normal bores cover some of the intake valve to boot. Crank & Pistons Is also as light as possible, and has tiny drilled-out counterweights. So the rods and pistons thus have to be very light to avoid the engine fully going out of balance. If you want a new crank, I think we all know how much stroker cranks for LS1s are... damn expensive! The ring pack on the pistons is extremely close together, too, which would add some to the oil problem. Speaking of balance, the harmonic balancer is a pressed fit with no keyway (neither does the crank)... You've gotta be made of money to do anything internal to these things I think! Info from someplace on the net and AMC.

NSW Police have had no trouble with GenIII engines, they love them!! Problem seems to generally be with manuals and people thrashing them.

I don't think the Police would make public any reliability issue's with their car's. They don't want to give us an edge now, do they?

the only reason people buy late model holdens is not because they're better, (which in many aspects they aren't) but because their marketing skills are better. You can build the best car in the entire world, but if you don't market it correctly, not many people will buy it.

agree 351, u put it perfectly champ. Gen 3 is a lump of ****! in all honesty what do u really get from it???? its an all alloy lump which has deep rooted troubles and has average performance. its marketed as a performance car, the big aussie V8 or wateva they ****n say about itt, but reality is, a mildly modded VL Turbo, 180sx etc will blow a gen 3 engined SS, Monaro etc into the weeds. I know this cos ive cained an SS and it honestly wasn't difficult........ but all the blokes drivin them think theyre THE ****! thats the best thing. and they frown upon u like ur a wanka until u smoke em! back on topic but, yeah its an average engine, no doubt about it. the proof is there to be seen....... l8ters

Make sure if u buy a VT, VX or maybe a VY its a HDT coz they still run the holden v8 engines.

old gold do u have any links to these AMC sites , im slowly doing up an old Rambler , and need some info from AMC sites. cheers andrew

the more i hear the more i'll never want to own a car with a gen3 until the problems are fixed :P 351 is on the money oo and sky jet i own an ss, not a gen3 though hehe and i dont think im king **** by any means :P somethin out there is always better.. :mrgreen: :roll: Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

I have yet to see some hard core evidence of this as I hear of a lot of rumours that are spread across the internet and the general public about different things,like for example the fact people were saying the design of the VT-VX Commodore was pinched off an Opel or that it is built off an Opel platform when in fact a prototype was built off an Opel platform and was canned as so much of the design had changed that it was better to start off with a new design. I have heard of rumours about the Holden stunt team which was at the easter show in Sydney, that one of their cars broke a timing chain when in fact it was someone spreading gossip,my brother was talking to one of the blokes who was in the precision driving team. I Find it has been Ford fans which spread a lot of these rumours. Lastly,I checked up on the HDT website and the VX's don't use a Holden motor,they use the GEN III 5.7 litre Chev motor,that is another rumour that they use Holden motors.

Quote: but all the blokes drivin them think theyre THE ****! thats the best thing. and they frown upon u like ur a wanka until u smoke em! Of course they're gonna think they are the **** after forking over $100k!

my parents own a VT SS with the gen111 and its done over 80,000km and has been kained by my dad and i, and nothing has ever gone wrong with it. must be just some gen111 motors ohwell

Wotever OldGold, I was in my friends low 12 VLCT when it got nailed by a Gen III GTS. He blamed his stally, I blame 5.7 litres of chevrolet grunt. Hard to argue with even in a good VL turbo. It was enough to make my friend go home and pull his motor out that same night so he could get his stally upgraded. Like you said it might take some money to modify the LS1, but who's to stop people who want real grunt from buyin an old carby 350 and supercharging/stroking it to 5-600 horses for below the cost of an SS. The holden LS1 range were sold as daily drivers with balls, for the man with a job who likes grunt but doesn't have the time to whinge and moan about cars like we do...OldGold. Probably why the guy driving the SS can afford one.

jet pilot - didn't mean everyone with a V8 Holden, just the general Gen 3 SS/Monaro/GTS brigade who hoon around and think theyre drivin Ferrari's! Actually the other nite i saw a perfect example. was cruising round on monday nite for a wile, i turn onto a highway and behind me is a VY SS. i turned fairly quickly but the VY darted from behind me to the left lane and fanged it full throttle past me, not that it shot past me or anything, i was at half throttle max. anyway, he then proceeded to dart in front of me, i sped up onto his tail, then they went to turn right off the highway, but instead of going right the tool did a u turn and went back the other way! the ****er just did that to show me his awesome Gen 3 grunt!!!!! wot a wanker, thats why i said wat i sed. when u see that u tend to think like i do i was pissed off cos i wanted to line him up at the next lights and choice bro, if ur mates VLT is a 12 sec car, he shouuld have nailed a GTS easily. they run mid 13's stock! unless it was modded, otherwise ur friend can't drive or his car ain't as quick as he thinks........ l8ters Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Choice Bro Yes, I'm not buying a Gen3 powered car anytime in the near future. Just like most people here, I won't own 99% of the cars I talk about. I just wanted to point out that Gen3s aren't the best damn engines on the road like 90% of unkowledgable HSV shirt wearing bogans think they are. Quote: Wotever OldGold These aren't "My facts." As I said, they are in Australian Muscle Car magazine, issue 6. Look it up. And I never said Gen3's were slow, after being for a 220kmh blast in a freind of a freinds VT SS, I'm mighty impressed. But I hope these people with lots of money to buy these cars still have it when they need new blocks because they can't overbore them in 15 years! Every performance car is sold as a daily driver with balls pretty much, it's down the track when they become affordable and people start modifying them that the above issues become a problem.

Sorry but I reckon Gen IIIs are awesome engines. GMH had to detune them for Oz and they still fly. The acceleration from high speeds is a massive improvement over the old 5 litre. And incredible fuel economy too when cruising.

i wouldnt go past the good old 5 litre i give 5.7 a good run for there money rite now with my 1, considering my car cost me like 10k were as thers cost em 50k :mrgreen:

Interesting allegations, do you have any engineering sources or anything like that? would like to look at it from a design point of view, and its not hard to see that they tried to budget it. I think they spent 2 bil developing the gen3, heaps considering that these seemingly faulty design traits might be true. Whats the Gen4 Like? Have a comment on the ls1 forums stating the same, or even ask some of those guys.

Well, my only real source, as I said, was in Australian Muscle Car, which if you ever read it, is a fairly honest magazine. The article featuring the above was actually an article about the C5R engine and how to make a Gen3 (which is actually 330/340-something cubes, not 350, interestingly) 427 cubes, and how good the Gen3 engine is. My chosen topic for this title was a bit misleading, as I believe the Gen 3 is a great engine, I'd like one but I don't think I'd ever pay for one. I guess the above aren't "seemingly faulty design traits" really. I think they are just chractersistics of new car manufacturing techniques, made as cheaply and quickly as possible.

OLD GOLD: The Gen III is 5.7 litres which is 350 cubic inches. That article that you read may have been written by a Ford nut, it sounds like it was very biased. Good to see that you'd like a Gen III after all MR HELE: Sorry but a Gen III is clearly a far better engine than a 5 litre. Ask Highway cops who used to drive them and then changed to the Gen III, they say it's a huge improvement. The SS with it became the Highway Patrols car of choice. The only down side was the loss of induction roar.

Yes but Holden tune down these engines before they put them in cars. 235kw is what holden tune them to be because of marketing in making the GTS look like it has huge power. I just want to state a few things first. I remember everyone was going on about how good the new ford was going to be compared to the holden. well here are some facts: Ford Falcon XR6 Turbo 0-100km/h 6.24 sec 0-400m 14.35@ 160.2km/h top speed 234km/h Holden Commodore SV8 0-100km/h 6.05sec 0-400m 14.03 @166km/h Top speed 259km/h HSV GTS 0-100km/h 5.24 sec 0-400m 13.36@177.8km/h Top speed 275km/h Ford FPV GT power 290kw 0-400m 14.06sec @167.8km/h 0-100km/h 5.81 I've been wanting to ask this for so long now. Why is the Ford so slow cause i remember a lot of u guys were rating both the turbo and V8. It seems Ford might be bull****ting a bit with their claim that they have 290kw. The Ford weighs in at 1835kg while the GTS at 1710kg. I'm wondering does the Ford have much less power than they claim because the SS is even faster than it. The turbo is still slower than the SS so obviously the Gen 3 isn't as bad as some of you guys make out. Also here is what a policeman said about the Gen 3: We check the oil at the beginning of every shift. We have had dozens of Gen 3's through here and havn't had one single engine problem except for one crank angle sensor. We've never had one use oil. Put it this way when we had the old V8 Holdens here we used to keep a supply of oil at the station just to top them up. We don't any more. Oil consumption can be caused by a number of factors. The cooking of pistons that causes slap can destabilise the seal of the rings against the cylinder walls. Lack of ring tension against the bore can cause oil consuption. There is also "ring Flutter" which is caused by a dynamic combination of these factors in a high rev, low load, low vacuum condion such as manually changing down gears at high road speeds. This means oil is making its way past the rings and into the combustion chamber where it is lost through combustion. Also people towing and tharashing the Ls1's can also lead to oil consuption. A ring pack was introduced into production around 2002 and a new piston design featuring teflon coated skirts was also introduced. Gen III's that have oil consumption problems are rebuilt with these components now.