How to diagnose lifter failure before it really goes south?

[Gangly]

On 11/20/2024 at 9:32 AM, Colin Zwaschka said:

Yeah. Next up is cleaning surfaces. My least favorite part.

A carbide scraper and gasket remover cut HOURs off of the surface cleaning for me.  Pick one up when you get a chance, its priceless.

[DK91105]

2500 mile check in.  Things are well and I checked the catch can for the first time yesterday. 

[11bravoZ71]

Awesome delete! I just had a shop do the same delete on my l84 couple weeks ago. I had the same ticking you described at 98k miles. Changed oil every 4k miles since new  and had DFM disabled since like 40k miles. This proves nothing can stop a DOD lifter failure,  it either will happen or it won’t.
Delete is the only way to avoid basically. 
 

 

 I noticed the ticking and not even 2 weeks later while off roading in the hills. lifter in cylinder 4 went out and scraped my cam. And Bent a pushrod. Luckily it wasn’t a lot of debris. Didn’t take long for it to fail once I heard the ticking…to add to the data for those that are interested.
 I used Diablosport tuner to disable DFM while keeping stock tune. . No codes or issues related to DFM. And Michigan motorsports delete kit. L8T cam. 
 

just have misfire in cylinder 7 due to a slightly bent fuel injector tip it seems. It’s literally bent/corooked at the shaft,  kind of like a banana but not as extreme of an angle. Idk how. 
 

.  the truck bogs and bucks down a lot with flashing cel misfiring while WOT. No codes. So I swapped the 7th injector with cylinder 1 injector. And the misfires on live data scanner went to cylinder 1 proving the bad injector. While cylinder 7 stopped misfiring thank god! lol. Plugs and wires were already new. 
 

Anyway good post! Not that many l84 deletes out their great to see more!

Edited February 9, 2025 by 11bravoZ71

[DK91105]

On 2/8/2025 at 10:05 PM, 11bravoZ71 said:

Awesome delete! I just had a shop do the same delete on my l84 couple weeks ago. I had the same ticking you described at 98k miles. Changed oil every 4k miles since new  and had DFM disabled since like 40k miles. This proves nothing can stop a DOD lifter failure,  it either will happen or it won’t.
Delete is the only way to avoid basically. 
 

 

 I noticed the ticking and not even 2 weeks later while off roading in the hills. lifter in cylinder 4 went out and scraped my cam. And Bent a pushrod. Luckily it wasn’t a lot of debris. Didn’t take long for it to fail once I heard the ticking…to add to the data for those that are interested.
 I used Diablosport tuner to disable DFM while keeping stock tune. . No codes or issues related to DFM. And Michigan motorsports delete kit. L8T cam. 
 

just have misfire in cylinder 7 due to a slightly bent fuel injector tip it seems. It’s literally bent/corooked at the shaft,  kind of like a banana but not as extreme of an angle. Idk how. 
 

.  the truck bogs and bucks down a lot with flashing cel misfiring while WOT. No codes. So I swapped the 7th injector with cylinder 1 injector. And the misfires on live data scanner went to cylinder 1 proving the bad injector. While cylinder 7 stopped misfiring thank god! lol. Plugs and wires were already new. 
 

Anyway good post! Not that many l84 deletes out their great to see more!

I'm curious what an independent shop charged you for that service vs what GM quoted me.  Did they provide the delete kit? What did you do about the tuning? just kept on with the DFM disabler?

[11bravoZ71]

The shop charged me 3200$ for the full labor only. 
 

I supplied the Michigan motorsports kit 

it was 650$ extra. I also supplied a New oil pump, timing tensioner, and chain, Rear main seal, front seal,  pushrod. Since I was at basically 100k and decided I’d rather keep this truck for as long as possible then getting into perpetual debt again. 
 

labor: 3200$

delete kit: 650$

extra parts while its apart: 300$

so 4100$ total. for what I hope is a engine that’ll last now. 
VS 6k+ at the dealer,  of the same ticking time bomb. May have been able to tackle it myself,  but I never rebuilt a motor before.  although I’ve done everything  else on cars besides that. 
 

the handheld tuner I bought a couple years for about 600$. The Diablosprt/superchips one… same “brand” it seems

it has 3 options for tuning 

but I kept the stock profile with “options” 

Just tuned off DOD/DFM from the ECM. And it worked out. I read the disabler that goes into the OBD port would not work with  a delete kit. The ECM needs to be tuned off DFM specifically. The OBD disabler only blocks the DFM signal. 
so a handheld “tuner” or HP tuners in necessary as it actually rewrites the computer to remove DFM from its existence. I guess lol. 
 

side note: I had DFM tuned off since 40k miles but clearly it doesn’t Avoid a lifter failure hard parts still in engine. . In my case. Once the delete was rebuilt we had to flash the ECM back to  to factory.  then reset and flash DFM OFF again for it to remove all the codes and limp mode.   

Edited February 11, 2025 by 11bravoZ71

[Srode1]

Sounds like a good price on the labor - mind sharing where you are located and who did the work for you?  Feel free to PM if you prefer not to post on the open forum.