VVT vs Eliminating VVT

If you are going through that sort of work definitely do it as a non AFM engine with a pretty stout cam and no vvt. The 6.2 will make a cam like the truck Norris idle like stock corvette. So basically any cam that's stg 2 or less will run nice at idle. I put the summit torkinator level 2 in my Tahoe with a 4 in stroke (made the 5.3 a 5.8) and the only way I got a choppy idle on it was idling it at 500rpm lol. I made a bit more tq than HP on Dyno using that cam so it works awesome for towing. Wish I had more cylinder head though for those street light battles. It wants more air up top. Put on that 6.2 l it might actually work really good because it has the cylinder head for it. So you might want to go with one of those or the truck Norris cam they are very similar in how the power band looks. But it really depends on what you want for your power band to be. If you're looking for a horsepower monster definitely go something stage 3. But if you want a daily drive it more so have the family in it kind of thing and use it for towing the stage 2 torque type stuff is better.

As far as Pistons go I would probably want to change them out to something better. The 6.2 is known for two problems, The Pistons like to crack, and the valve seats like to drop out of the head. There is a way to check the valve seats sort of, it's Jank but I found it out by accident once. I was going to do some ceramic coating to some combustion chambers I don't knows three head which has the same problem and in order to do that you have to put it in the oven. It's for the degassing of the metal so you can put the ceramic coating on. Anyway, you have to cook the cylinder head at a temperature above 400° for a certain amount of time. When I did this everything was perfectly fine. But I had the head face down and when I opened the oven door the cool air drafting up the ports cooled the seat down and made it drop out on a couple of holes. So if you strip the head clean and cook it in the oven, it will probably only take 300° or so. But you might be able to actually get the valve seats to fall out just by opening the door and letting a draft through the ports while the cold air rushes into the oven. If the seats drop It was bound to happen at some point during the life of the engine. Just do it on a day when your wife isn't home if you have a wife lol. Don't do the full 400°, it will smoke like crazy as it burns everything off. I had a special oven I used so I didn't wreck the good one or smoke up the house. But the reason I mentioned 300° is because it's above the temperature the engine should ever reach, so in theory if it's going to happen it will happen at 300° and it's better to have it happen out of the engine. I seen a piston and cylinder wall get completely destroyed from one of these seats dropping out before on a couple occasions. It's real common in the 6.2 truck engines and the LS3 which just so happens to be a 6.2 l as well.

As far as replacing the Pistons goes, unless you're doing it for budget reasons I would just get a set of aftermarket forged pistons instead of using something from a LS3. That was three pistons do seem to have less trouble though, so take that for what it is I guess.