I bought the cheapest camshaft and lifter kit on eBay for 5.3L Chevy trucks to delete AFM/DOD. There was a surprise in the box... I install the parts and drive the Tahoe around. I have an opinion at the end.
Usually these cheap kits skimp out on the Lifter trays. I don't understand why. I mean, they are just plastic after all. They can allow the lifters to rotate which would be detrimental. I wonder if you used the kit, but used better quality lifters how it would turn out.
Flushing out all that metal is a lot more important than ever diesel or mineral spirits so your new parts will last longer than the end of your driveway
You had to know something was up when you scraped the piston with a chisel, right? I would have ran the crap out of that engine. It sounded like it has some piston slap or the small end of the rod was knocking. It didn't sound like regular rod knock to me.
Sounds like a rod cap never got tightened! Did you remember to tighten the cap? Did you plastiguage the tolerances on that main or rod cap you removed? I would have done the clearances before you did anything to see if the bearings were trashed, you guys just assumed!
Sounds like to me you didn't break in the cam properly usually with a new cam lifters you start up and let it run at 3k rpm 30 mins or so break in then change the oil..
