C5 ZO6 Valve Springs

[stevebz06]

This is sort of on a subject that I had been thinking about. With the old small block, I remember that 30,000 miles was considered to be the time to start thinking about changing valve springs due to fatigue. I've never heard of any figure like this for the LS engines. My truck went over 200 K without my giving it much thought, but I wasn't revving it to redline every other start cycle, either. Has anybody checked to see how much spring pressure is lost as the miles rack up?

As far as the 02 and 03 failures go, it could have been a bad batch of springs, maybe some springs got nicked in handling, or maybe even a few cams were out of spec. I've also heard that warm up is very important for spring life, and I've seen a lot of drivers start their engines and immediately start using alot of RPM.

[Randyman49]

I know this is a relatively old subject but 11-11 I was driving my 2003 stock Z06 in traffic about 45 miles per hour and number 1 intake valve spring broke, dropping the valve into the piston and snapping it off lodging it sideways in the seat after putting a hole in the piston and damaging the cylinder. Believe me this happens. My car has always been maintained properly and never raced.