2017 Escalade ESV AFM delete project - COMPLETED

Just picked up a ‘17 Esky ESV lux with a bent #4 pushrod for a VERY good price. Noise isn’t terrible and was able to drive it up and down a car hauler. I’m DIY and just did this job on my ‘08 Sierra (as preventative maintenance). Got lucky with finding a new Comp Cam XFI for $100 from FBM for the Sierra but it seems the L86 cams aren’t cheap - even for stock. Has anyone here actually done an AFM Delete with the L86 and which cam did you use? I have about $950 worth of parts in my RockAuto cart (also have new belts, pulleys, filters, etc) and I’m ready to pull the trigger on Michigan Motorsports LS7 lift kit with trays and new pushrods for $230ish on Amazon. Just need to commit to a cam and possibly new springs if I go with a stage 1. I did the beehives with my Sierra and I do plan on replacing all of the valve seals while I have the heads off - are all new springs a good idea even if I do go with a stock performance non-AFM cam? Scoggin-Dickey have their stock L86 non-AFM cam for ~$310.

I’m an L83 but same deal, I used a TSP OEM-profile delete cam, no tuning required.

$300-ish direct from TSP:

I just looked them up and wow $33 shipping! Right now I'm looking at the Scoggin Dickey SDR29512 "stock" AFM delete cam. I see that Melling makes these; I wouldn't doubt that these (Texas, Michigan Motorsports, and SDParts) are all Mellings. I'm apprehensive about buying a "kit" as they are missing some key items such as the front cover gasket, intake gaskets, etc. There fails to be a complete kit out there. I'm blown away with the Gen V vs Gen IV oil pump design. Did you change out your pump? Could it be done without dropping the pan like on the Gen IV's?

Went with the Scoggin-Dickey stock-spec cam for $309 shipped, Michigan Motorsports Delphi LS7 lifters trays and pushrods for $234 on Amazon, and RockAuto FTW. Tried to get as many OE parts I could find. Glad to see that there are many Genuine GM (versus ACDelco aftermarket) still available:

Gathered most of the items. The Gates branded coolant all-in-one pump assembly was damaged in shipping so I sent that back. Realized that the 6.2 has longer pushrods so I ordered some up. The photo is about 3.5 hrs into the job.

Tomorrow I’ll get much more done so long that it doesn’t rain.

Found something crazy when disassembling everything. The #2 spark plug wire wasn’t pressed in all the way. The wired was all charred with this white stuff and the electrode tip was gone. Explain the rough running engine that sounded like AFM lifter failure? Regardless, I’m tearing this all down to investigate any irrecoverable damage and then do the delete no matter what.

trailblazer said:

Did you change out your pump? Could it be done without dropping the pan like on the Gen IV's?

Click to expand...

Yeah i had them swap the oil pump. The shop pulled the motor to do the delete, so I had quite a few parts replaced since I didn’t have to pay to get to them:

• Texas Speed delete kit, OEM cam profile
• Timing chain and tensioner
• Oil pump
• All belts and cooling hoses
• Belt drive tensioner
• Water pump
• Oil pump control valve solenoid wire
• Circle D triple-disk converter, OEM stall
• Clean intake manifold, ports and intake valve

My tranny was a 1-year old GM warranty unit. I didn’t want to wait for yet another converter to fail (between the two trucks in my sig I’m at 3 converters) so I had it swapped.

FYI once you do the delete, you can literally delete the vacuum pump, it’s no longer needed.

Sheeeeet I bought a new GM vacuum pump. Will this ESV still have good brakes? Do plumb the power boost into the crankcase somehow?

trailblazer said:

Sheeeeet I bought a new GM vacuum pump. Will this ESV still have good brakes? Do plumb the power boost into the crankcase somehow?

Click to expand...

Some info here, plus Google and YouTube will net tons of hits


I’m still running the factory vac pump, but if it fails/causes any issues, I’ll delete it.

I probably just install the new OE pump as I have it in-hand. Well, looks like the #4 exhaust lifter broke into pieces. The #6 exhaust lifter is ground down flat. 2-4-8 rollers are smooth. 1-3-5-7 rollers have small groves.

Well this sucks. Just snapped the plastic timing chain tensioner. Not happy. Like beyond angry. Sets me back weeks due to other maintenance items I need to get done around the house. SHEEEEEEEET!

Well, I watched a YT video of this guy who insists he’s done a ton of these Gen V AFM delete jobs and mentioned it isn’t uncommon to break that tensioner when trying to lock it back. He said I could pull the oil pump forward and carefully remove the tensioner assembly bolts. They are M8 flange head bolts and I did it! I used a pry tool to convince the pressed-in bushings to release from the tensioner bracket therefore give more room. I will trim down one of the good original bolts and use a new one as the head started to round off of the other.

New cam and HPFP lifter installed. Valley cover VLOM crap all removed (ground off rivet nuts), oil passage from oil pressure sensor to VLOM tapped & plugged with a Allen key set screw (M8) with Loctite Red, and the little plugs hammered into the towers on the block. Just need to grab a valley cover gasket tomorrow at the auto parts store for $11.

Job is done. This took extremely longer than the Gen IV delete I did about a year ago. Didn’t help that it was 90+ degrees out with 100% humidity (versus Colorado last year). A lot of the time wasted was dealing with the snapped timing chain tensioner debacle and then I stupidly forgot to extract two broken exhaust manifold bolts on the passenger side head. Had to pull the fender liner (easy) and weld on nuts etc. Nome of this was hard but just added hours. Before starting I was shocked when I discovered that HPTuners wants FOUR credits ($200) to be able to play with the ECU and disable AFM. I suppose this means I’ll be tuning this engine in the future as I paid for it. Did the trans filter change. What a real S-Show. It’s 9PM last night. I’m exhausted. I forgot to install the magnets; thankfully I didn’t fill it. It was a head scratcher though as before I even started the trans job. I noticed that the temperature sensor was reading 46°. This doesn’t make any sense as the ambient temperature was around 80+. Then it dawned on me — the stupid 8L90 wire harness assembly has went to hell. RockAuto has it for $45 and my local GMC dealer has it on hand and I negotiated it down from $171 to $133. Parts guy instead that 24064375 supersedes 24046895. I brought up a TSB that says the 4395 part is for ESS (auto start-stop) but he looked up my VIN and said it’s compatible. Yup - it works fine. Took like 100 seconds to remove the old one and install the new one. In fact the pan slide on without shaq-foo’in the solenoid connector shell. Smart upgrade GM for your crappy tranny. Removed the trans cooler thermostat manifold and gutted the stupid “pill” and spring. Installed the barbell piece so it flows all the time. Anyways, I did the refill circus of about seven quarts and hooked up some tubes to what I thought was the return fitting from the trans cooler. What a PITA as it was messy. I found and old plastic 3/8 PCV tube piece that fit perfectly into the trans cooler manifold on the trans. I ran the engine for about a minute and poured in another couple quarts. Did this a couple times. It’s amazing how fast she pumps out. Was a very very dark red almost black colored fluid. Quite messy but next time (20k interval) I’ll just do a suck n’fill and deal with the “rock catcher” filter every 40k miles. Oh I also installed a Chinese-copy of the B&M dipstick which I got for free to product test. It actually fits great.

She runs good folks. A LOT of shiny bits were in the engine oil pan. All of the driver side lifters had small grooves. When I had the front cover off I did flush the pan with diesel fuel to carry away any debris out of the drain and followed it up with an oil flush wave. Again, I was finding shiny bits but not as much. I’ll be changing the oil filter after 100 miles and inspecting it. I have yet to cut open the other one. This is a really nice rig. It’s been well used as a family truckster. I’m thinking Pro-Detail to make it like new. I do have a laundry list of projects such as all new OE BWI struts and rear air springs ($1700), replace the Left side detection module (got one for $70 on the way), and deal with this pesky “Vehicle Direction Camera Control Module” comm error. I love doing diagnostic mysteries so this Caddy will keep me busy for a while. The last owner had just installed brand new Michelin tires. He was very generous to sell this to me for almost nothing. It did take away almost four days of my life (part time) but I’m glad the hard part is OVER!