Never buy a Tristar Tri-star engine

[dtennes]

TRI-STAR reman engines stink on ice.

Rule #1 about engine replacement:
never...
Never...
NEVER...
EVER...
BUY A TRISTAR reman engine (Autozone).

Tristar is owned by LKQ, so never, ever buy anything from LKQ either.

1st block was fried in the 1st 200 miles due to a bad oil pump which overheated and roached the block. At this point I'm out the labor costs for installation, and I have to pony up another 20 shop hours of labor charges to install the 2nd engine. Didn't even get to 10K miles and the 2nd engine needs a valve job for another whopping 10 shop hours of labor charges. 50 x $200/hr = $10K of labor costs.

My best recommendation is "if your KJ is misfiring (and new plugs don't fix it) and or knocking, time to dump it".

I'm sure there are reputable reman companies out there and this web site has recommendations, so choose wisely. I dodn't have a choice because I trusted the initial install to a garage run by thieves and now I'm stuck with this nightmare.

I'm going to spend the $1500 to have this work done, but if anything else goes wrong with this piece of garbage engine the KJ is getting turned into a coffee table pedastal.

 

[dtennes]

UPDATE: The head is dead.

Detailed forensics determined that the bank 1 cyl 1 valve seat is bad. This is in a supposedly fresh reman Tristar motor with less than 10K. The ticking actually started around 5K, but what's the diff at this point. Net: head replacement to deal with the valve problem. Was hoping that it was simply a bad lifter, but no it's catastrophic or nothing when it comes to Tristar.

With any luck at all, the other head won't go out on me any time soon. Wouldn't that be ironic.

 

[KJowner]

That's terrible, sounds like bad machining in the seat pocket.
Fingers crossed for the other head.