[cadillac531]

Originally Posted by edram454

the question was,, can it damage your car?? well just yesterday I met up with a nice guy in my neighborhood with a 1991 z, he seems like a very handy person with lots of equipment in his garage, welders, press etc.. he had just powder coated and ported his top end and his cam covers.... but on the side of his garage on a crate stood a wrapped up lt5. he just bought that engine used because he over-reved his engine and damaged it. he turned it on and it make some bad noises internally. he thought it was maybe damaged lifters so he replaced some of them. he decided to replace the whole engine so he bought a long block. he was driving around while his tach was not working and over-reved it and lost his motor. I know when I have hit the limiter on my c5 it just drops cylinders and stumbles. maybe the lt5 will do the same but again we are doing many more rpms than a c5 would be doing so the damage is more iminent. I would say not a good idea bumping that limiter too many times. by the way, this friends zr1 had 130k miles on it and still was running as strong as a bull.

ed ramos #3028

Yeah, on a traditional pushrod motor, hitting the limiter can cause valve float. When that happens, the valves could contact the piston **BANG**.

In our LT5's, the movable valve train weight should be less, since there's no pushrod, so I would think the force would need to be much higher to get the valves to float. That sudden stop in accelerating RPM's still creates forces within the engine that attempt a valve float.

That's why aftermarket rev limiters try to soften that stop, like MSD's soft touch rev limit.