The longstanding battle between Ford, Chevy, Mopar,, or any other manufacturer you are getting pissed at me for not including, will always be there. And people will always freak out when you put a small block Ford in a ’69 Camaro. But, what about the new LS Engines? Sure they are built by GM. Sure, the come in GM cars. But to the hot rodding world, they have become sort of generic and therefore acceptable in a lot of different things.
What do you think?
Is the LS Engine a Chevy, General Motors, or Generic?
If they’re “Government Motors” instead of Chevy, does that make ’em any less ugly or antique?
“Generic” engines are like generic beer, generic soda, generic food . . . . Blah.
I’d call them “boring”, actually.
It’s a Chevy / GM engine (samething). It is not ok to put one in your non-GM street car or hotrod. Putting a LS engine in a non-GM racecar is understandable, but not cool
It’s a corporate GM motor. Not a Chevy in my books since it arrived after GM had mostly abandoned their “each division engineers its own engine” philosophy, and it’s showed up factory installed in something wearing every GM division badge in the US, even SAAB-badged SUVs at one point.
I’m not one to get upset about throwing together a race car from a bunch of cheap parts from different manufacturers, like a Fox Mustang with LSx power. And cross-manufacturer swaps make sense to me when there’s no obvious equivalent engine – for example, an LS1 in a Nissan, where the few Nissan V8s that are out there have little in the way of aftermarket support and are considerably larger on the outside. But if you’re building a ’60s street machine, I would personally prefer to see a Torinno packing a 4.6 modular motor or a Coronet with a new 6.1 Hemi instead of LSx swaps.
Every motor coming out of GM be it Chevy GMC Buick or Cadillac is generic ..with only minor changes between the brands to suit the car they’re going in . Been that way for at least a decade .
Or it could just be that everything with V8s at GM (excluding the old Northstar/Aurora) has been powered by Chevy.
The main development work of the LS has been by Chevy for the Corvette. The Chevy fans claim it as the direct successor to the SBC. More of them are sold in Chevys than in any other GM brand. And when it’s replaced, with the “Gen V” small-block, GM’s P.R. Department will tie the lineage back to the ’55 Chevy 265 (“Gen I”). Thus, it’s a Chevy.
And it was introduced to the world in . . . a Chevy (1997 Corvette LS1)
The LS engine is just a generic fits all motor. As is any crate engine. When you are building on an assembly line the same motor thousands and thousands of times with the same parts it can’t be anything other than generic.
I think it is important to consider how easy it is to package a LSx motor into an engine compartment.
Sure a DOHC 4.6/5.4 or a NuHEMI may be cool but they are bulky motors that often require butchering virgin metal.
And I can fit a LS7 in the pocket that the 2.5L six fits into in my 325 all for the same weight but two and a half times the power.
I think the LSx is generic simply because it is a goes anywhere does anything motor that can fit ever kind of budget from $500 to the sky.
Generic…I DO respect the power of an LS engine, but damn… I am sick of seeing them. Can’t Ford come up with something that will compete with the LS AND fit in the engine bay of a Pinto?
I think the late model Hemi could be a contender if Mopar had a user friendly ECU and wiring harness.
Ford has the Hurricane or 777 engine with a 4.530 bore space that will give the LS engine all it can handle. The Hemi deal needs a race type block, it’s an over priced throw away. Call it what you want but, an LS 396″ in an 06 Mustang is the plan. Screw all that matching crap. They’re all air pumps, get over it.
Corporate Engine.
LS Engines really aren’t that common folks. I know it’s all the magazines talk about, and it’s all anyone runs in a fox body mustang at the drags anymore, but the general hot rodding world is NOT all LS.
And the Hemi might have something for the LS in certain combos. The Mod motors/Coyotes DO NOT. Easy, easy… They make great power, but they can’t fit in ANYTHING. The new 5.0 Coyote engine is 3.25 inches wider than a Big Block Chevrolet.
Come on Ford. Get a clue.
I bet a Model T Pickup on 32 Rails with a Coyote and a 6-71 would make and excellent use of the wide valve covers.
It would…..but it would also look funny.
It really doesn’t matter in my book, Chevy always had the engines with the best potential at GM . In the end all the other divisions motors (v8’s) were done away with long ago. So this is why we generally think of it as a chevy. It can only be a progression of the old small block.Ford used the Same Ford marked engines at least a decade before gm started the corporate engine plan . And it isn’t pretty,who cares. It will fly for cheap.The hood is down 99 % of the time anyway.
Thanks for pointing out the size issue. The “old” Ford modular engines were the size of the Chevy rat motors.
Have you noticed how often Ford changes their engine designs and yet never really moves all that far ahead?
these are the good ole days people- hemi’s and ls’s and 5.0’s making 550 h.p. and in a nice light package….. put em in whatever you want and enjoy, cause the one v-6 fits all days are right around the corner!
I have an 05 Goat – LS are Chebbie motors – putting them is pre-81 Ponchos is sacrilegious
That Bowtie cast into the bottom of the block in the above picture only confuses me!
An engine is a lump of metal that makes power heat and noise. When it comes to going fast who cares where it came from as long as it goes the fastest for the cheapest.
Say what you will but certain milestone events tell the tale about the economics of using an LS in just about anything: RMS makes the popular drop-in K-member replacement to take most of the popular Mopar combos and upgrade them to power rack, big brakes, coil-overs…. ANYWAY – he has started making a version of his AlterKtion product to fit LS motors. He’s had that much interest. He is the LAST guy who would put one of those motors in a Mopar, but business is business.
So if I walk into my local Buick Parts Dept, can I order an LSX engine? Or do I have to go to a Chevrolet dealership?
I believe that GM policy is that any GM dealer can order any GM part.