Chevy 1500 6.2L V8 (L87) Engine *Heavy Mechanic Review* | Top 3 Issues

and I just think it's unfortunate that GM has really stubbed their toe here with this uh this fuel management technology or cylinder deactivation technology this truck right here is getting about 19 liters per 100 kilometers which is like 12 miles per gallon [Music] come on [Music] well well well huge shock we have another Black GMC on the channel but this time we have the 6.2 liter V8 engine here pretty excited to talk about that and dive deeper into it but uh yeah wow this is actually my Macco tool guys truck he's been nice enough to lend it to me for the afternoon this is a 2019 GMC Sierra at4 and he's actually put some really nice touches onto this truck he's got the blacked out GMC badge there it actually lights up as well he's got the blacked out at4 badges down here all tinted out it's a it's a really really nice looking truck I have to say so for starters this is a 6.2 liter naturally aspirated push rod V8 and it is putting out 420 horsepower as well as 460 pound-feet of torque it is a part of the Ecotec 3 or the 5th gen small block engine family which also encompasses the 5.3 liter V8 as well as the 4.3 liter V6 now despite this being a push rod V8 there is some interesting technology in here stuff like direct injection Dynamic fuel management variable valve timing start stop technology and we will dive into some greater depth into those things later in the video with this 6.2 you get an aluminum block aluminum cylinder heads you get a forged crankshaft forged connecting rods as well as aluminum alloy Pistons which give this thing a compression ratio of 11.5 to 1 which is pretty high again we will talk later in the video about why that is quite important to remember so the first thing that I really like about this engine I think mostly everyone can agree on this is the power output so this is the highest V8 power output in the 1500 truck segment Motor Trend took this thing to the track to really show us how powerful this engine is and it ran a 0-60 time in 5.5 seconds which is pretty darn quick for a 5 000 pound 4x4 truck that also ran the quarter mile uh 14 seconds Flats at a hundred miles an hour so this 6.2 liter V8 is putting out some really really impressive power now yes speed is probably not going to excite the average pickup truck driver that much when it comes to buying a truck however with that speed and power comes Towing ability now this truck right here in a crew cab 4x4 configuration Kento up to 13 300 pounds which to me is pretty impressive for again a 4x4 crew cab configuration in a 1500 now seeing that the three liter Duramax Diesel can also tow I believe 13 000 pounds in a crew cab 4x4 configuration leads me to believe that the max Towing ability of this engine is not limited to the engine itself rather the truck so in my opinion I feel like this 6.2 liter engine could probably tow a lot more weight if if it had the right truck behind it now what comes with that I think what's a little understated with that especially when it just comes to Towing numbers on paper is the ease of Towing and I think this 6.2 is going to be a much easier towing engine it's going to make the towing experience for you guys a much easier simpler process so having the 6.2 liter engine over the 5.3 liter or the 3 liter Duramax is just going to really help you guys in terms of that Towing experience as a whole so that is another nice advantage of this engine so this thing is a nice powerful power plant and I'm actually really excited to get this thing on the road feel the power in the driver's seat we're gonna do that next week but in terms of mechanical advantages with this engine well it's a tried and true pushrod V8 GM has made many many push rod V8s through its lifetime they seem to do a pretty good job of it you got a forged crankshaft Forge connecting rod so you're going to get good bottom and strength out of this engine which is always good to see in fact the 5.3 is extremely similar to this engine the main difference is the bore diameter so the stroke of the 5.3 and the 6.2 are actually the same the only difference is the bore is larger in the 6.2 and that's what gives it that larger displacement and more power so those are some things that I really like about the 6.2 at the end of the day this thing is just a very powerful fun fast engine and I think anyone who owns this engine is just going to have a great time driving your truck no engine is perfect and this thing is no exception and before we get into the negative side of this engine just want to remind everyone these are just my opinions what I kind of see with this engine and if you guys have anything to add drop a comment down below I like hearing what you guys have to say like reading your comments and usually there's some pretty good information down there but anyways let's uh let's see what's going on in terms of issues and things I don't like about this engine now the first thing that kind of bugs me about this 6.2 is the fact that you should probably be running 93 octane premium fuel in this truck now I know everyone kind of has their own opinions online about this and GM does not actually fully require it rather they highly recommend that you run 93 octane premium fuel and it's not like if you put 87 regular fuel in here you're going to get check engine lights or misfires the engine will run it'll probably run just fine but the reason why I think you should be running 93 octane has to do with the high compression ratio in this engine so this engine has a compression ratio of 11.5 to 1 which is actually quite high for a naturally aspirated engine and unlike what some people believe that higher octane fuels actually have more power in them it's not necessarily true higher octane fuels for the most part again I'm not I'm no chemist but basically what they allow is the fuel to combust at a higher pressure so what happens when you run 87 octane in a higher compression engine is that the fuel will actually ignite from the pressure alone and not the spark and so what that does is cause detonation the cylinder because some of the fuel is combusting from the pressure alone and some of the fuels combusting with the spark and as those two combustion zones combine you get detonation the cylinder and that kind of sounds like a knocking and it's actually can wreak a lot of havoc on an engine now on the flip side with something like 93 octane fuel it can withstand a higher compression ratios or the higher cylinder pressures and not Auto ignite from the pressure alone it will only ignite from the spark therefore resulting in a controlled burn or a controlled expansion resulting in a healthy combustion stroke now these are smart modern engines if you put 87 octane fuel in here it'll notice pretty quickly that there's detonation happening in the cylinder and what it'll do is actually change up the timing a little bit so the spark goes off at a slightly different different time and so basically what happens is that will eliminate most of the detonation but you will lose performance and most importantly you'll lose fuel efficiency when you run those lower octane fuels if you're hoping to keep this engine for long term I would highly recommend running 93 octane yes this engine will adjust with 87 octane fuel but it will not eliminate all of the detonation and if you guys are towing or putting any power down to the road there's more likely chance of detonation with that lower octane fuel so realistically this engine is designed to be run with 93 octane fuel for its best performance and Longevity that's why I would highly recommend that anyone looking to keep their engine healthy 193 Octane and to me that is a very tough pill to swallow when you're buying a pickup truck the second thing that really concerns me is the dynamic fuel management or GM cylinder deactivation in this engine it's been talked about a ton online and rightfully so because I think it is a major issue with these engines now both the 5.3 as well as the 6.2 have Dynamic fuel management also known as dfm for short and I guess the reason for GM implementing this is well quote um GM wanted a more fuel-efficient environmentally friendly big V8 compared to previous Vortec versions and unfortunately those two things rarely combine for reliability so starting in 2019 GM moved to this dfm system before that they had what was called active fuel management or AFM and that was a simpler version of their cylinder deactivation basically you could either run in a V8 mode or only a four cylinders firing and so that was what's called AFM now dfm has the ability to shut down any cylinder at any time in fact I believe there's like 17 different firing patterns that can happen on this engine as well as allowing only two cylinders to be firing at a time so essentially what GM is trying to do is save even more fuel by having an even more complex cylinder deactivation system on these engines now probably to no one's surprise GM is having massive lifter and valve train failures starting in 2019 with this dfm system in there and that is because well the dfm dynamic fuel management system utilizes the lifters primarily to either shut down or activate cylinders and so unfortunately these engines are just having massive lifter failures with extremely low mileage trucks which is just unfortunate to see so in 2021 GM released an official technical service bulletin basically mentioning that if a truck was having a valve train issue or lifter issues they put new updated lifters in them and going forward all the newer trucks would have the newer updated lifter in them however we're still seeing lifter failure valve chain failure in the newer trucks still at low mileage so I don't know what good that really did and I just think it's unfortunate that GM has really stubbed their toe here with this this fuel management technology or cylinder deactivation technology this truck right here is is getting about 19 liters per 100 kilometers which is like 12 miles per gallon really not great fuel economy so you know to me it's kind of like what is the point of putting all this complex Tech that's making the engine less reliable to still have these trucks really not be that efficient so um you know it's uh yeah it's unfortunate to see GM's whole cylinder deactivation stuff just kind of puts a sour taste in my mouth because for years GM was known for making these good quality strong reliable V8s and I just I just don't understand why they've kind of gone down this road to really not save that much fuel at the end of the day and now my final point about this is the 6.6 liter gas V8 engine in the HD trucks 2500 3500s they don't have any cylinder deactivation technology in them and shockingly we don't hear about really any valve train lifter failures in them so I think it's pretty cut and paste what is causing these massive lifter failures in these engines it's that cylinder deactivation technology that really doesn't save you much fuel anyway so that is by far the number one issue with these engines as well as the 5.3s so keep that in mind if you're looking to buy one another concern I have with this engine is the direct fuel injection direct fuel injection it's pretty self-explanatory the injector the fuel injector is directly in the combustion chamber and it gives you a number of advantages like throttle response fuel economy power as well as being able to have a higher combustion chamber ratio so all good things but there are some side effects with direct injection which this engine seems to suffer from so the number one downside by far with direct injection and what affects these engines is the carboning up of the intake and the intake valves so on a normal port injection fuel system something that's like in my 6'4 Hemi or your 5.7 Hemi fuel is constantly spraying down the intake as well as the intake valve and that clears any carbon that could get stuck on the intake and the intake valve now with direct injection the injector like we mentioned is directly in the combustion chamber so the intake the intake valve does not get sprayed with fuel therefore there's the chance and the possibility of carbon buildup on the intake and the intake valve basically it's going to limit the airflow that can get into the cylinder and eventually get to a point where it can even start to cause misfires loss of power rough idling and there's really no way to kind of clean that off other than physically getting in there and physically cleaning up the carbon now in GM's defense this is common on any direct injection system it's not just GM but it is something to be aware of now a couple manufacturers have circumnavigated this side effect of direct injection Ford sure you guys have heard of them in 2017 they implemented what's called dual injection fuel system on their 5-liter V8s in their pickup trucks basically meaning it has a port injection system as well as a direct injection system all in one so you get the benefits of direct injection however you also have Port injections spraying down the intake so you don't get carbon buildup Toyotas and other manufacturer that's now kind of implementing a system very similar to that to me we're coming up on the 2024 models here this fall and you know Ford implemented that dual injection system to circumnavigate these side effects and the issues of direct injection seven years ago so you know it's not like these trucks are getting any cheaper and so it just it you know I thought for years GM would Implement what Ford did but they just haven't and it's not like carbon buildup is an undocumented side effect of direct injection it's very well documented it just would be nice to see GM address that very well-known issue and do something like what Ford did addressed it get it out of the way and now it's just behind them and they can have the direct injection and not have to worry about carbon buildup so that would be nice to see from GM now the fourth thing that kind of caught my eye that I didn't necessarily like about this engine is the fact that it's going to come with a variable displacement oil pump I would have liked to see a fixed displacement oil pump but again to kind of defend GM here it seems like the whole industry is going towards variable displacement oil pumps and I think the number one reason why is because it allows you to extend your oil life intervals much longer than a fixed displacement oil pump and I think that is highly advantageous to Fleet owners and Fleet owners buy a lot of trucks and to fleets they heavily prioritize maintenance costs so if they can lower maintenance costs they're more likely to buy your brand of truck now the second reason why I could think manufacturers are going this route is because it is going to slightly increase fuel economy which as we saw earlier in the video GM would do anything to increase the fuel economy of these engines so that would also make sense the reason why I don't like variable displacement oil pumps is because at idle I just think they don't put enough pressure up into the the engine I know when I reviewed the 7.3 leader Godzilla engine from Ford they were saying that the idle oil pressure from its variable displacement pump was like six or seven PSI of pressure which to me is just not enough and well that that engine's having some valve train issues and but what is the last thing to get oil it's your valve train so you know when there's a lot of extended idling on an engine and it has not very much oil pressure had idling I just to me it's a little bit of a recipe of things that could go wrong now luckily there has been no reported issues with this variable oil pump from GM but again it's just something that caught my eye just thought I'd share that with you guys well guys to conclude those are some things that I like about this engine first and foremost is the power the torque the horsepower you put your foot down it's going to make you smile Smiles per mile as they say and that is probably going to be very accurate with this truck another thing that I really like is the towing ability and the ease of Towing you know if you're going to tow like an eight thousand ten thousand pound trailer this thing will do it without much issue and it's just going to make your life so much easier which I like that about this as well it's a good push rod V8 it's going to have a solid bottom end on it like most GM V8s do however it is not Flawless and like we discussed there are some pretty decent issues or concerns I would have I was going to be buying this engine to be completely honest with you guys I think there are more reliable options in the 1500 segment than the 6.2 as well as the 5.3 because well they're just basically almost the same engine I love GM I like GM I used to own GM trucks um I think they they used to make really really quality V8 engines that people could rely on but unfortunately the 2019 plus V8s in their trucks specifically in the 1500 segment have really suffered some reliability issues and I don't think I'm wrong saying that you guys can disagree with you if you want but I think in general you know there are some more reliable engine options out there than this and uh yeah that is my conclusion anyways guys I hope you liked the video if you did don't forget to leave that thumbs up and if you like cool stuff like this don't forget to subscribe anyways enough of me guys see you next freaking video

Channel: The Getty Adventures

Views: 117,703

Keywords: Chevy, GMC, 6.2L v8, chevy 6.2, chevy 1500, gmc 1500, chevy 1500 6.2L reliability, chevy 6.2L top issues, chevy 6.2L issues, chevy 6.2l vs 5.3, chevy 6.2L v8 engine review, 6.2L l87 review, is the 6.2L a good engine, chevy 6.2L top speed, automotive, heavy mechanic review, chevy 6.2L review, chevy 6.2L pros vs cons, chevy 6.2L fuel economy, chevy 6.2L lifter issues, chevy 6.2L lifter failure, chevy 6.2L dfm delete, chevy 6.2L lifter problems, gmc lifter issues, 6.2L lifters

Id: T378_ZjFqGs

Length: 19min 14sec (1154 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2023