Thread: OEM 3800 vs LS7 lifters

Getting ready to do my lim gasket finally, I’ve had the car for like 5 years and haven’t worried about it til now.

It’s at about 150k and I’m planning to do the lifters while I’m in there. My main concern is that Gm genuine OE lifters are like $30 a piece, so that’s ridiculous for 12 of them. I was looking at the LS7 lifters that everyone talks about as OE replacements and that zzp sells.

All the talk about preload makes me want to leave them alone, though. When I did my rockers a few years ago I got YT roller rockers, which came with longer oil restricted pushrods. I just put the rockers in place over the push rods and torqued the bolts to like 23-25 ft-lbs and moved on. No rotating the engine and looking for lash or anything.

Considering the rollers and longer push rods, would the LS7 lifters be as easy as torque em and go? Or do I really have to do the whole spinning the engine thing and checking for lash on each one?

I've never spun the motor to close both valves while tightening rockers. I've never had a problem. You should be fine just dropping them in and torquing the rocker down. But you could potentially have issues because the preload range is not as large as stock lifters.

If it was me, I would inspect all the rollers and reuse the stock lifters, as they rarely go bad.