Gen3 or Gen4 rods

does my motor have gen3 or gen4 rods?

how will i know the difference?

this and more!

what we have here is a early gen3 5.3 rod and piston on the left

and a newer ls2 style floating piston and beefier gen4 style rod on the right

(click to enlarge)

also note, these newer 5.3 pistons you can sometimes get in FLAT TOP wich will increase compression ratio also

(dished gen3 piston on the top, flat top gen4 piston on the bottom)

check out the thickness difference

another super easy way to tell is to pull the pan, if both rod ends are square, right angle ends like this, these are the newer rods

again you can see on the right the gen3 rod is skinnier and has a rounded edge on one side at the big end