What would be the best high performance engine to put in a 1980-1982 corvette?

 

Best for what purpose? How do you use your car? DD, street & strip, autoX, and so on. What are you looking for in terms of performance, or??

If you provide more info., the members will chime in with lots of ideas.

 

High performance? An extremely large c.i. fuel injected, turbo charged, aluminum big block!

 

To perform on the public road, maybe close to the ls3 performance.

 

So your in the 400 h.p range? Still too many to choose from, you need to think about more of what (you) want ... I've got a ZZ383 and i like that but it may not be what you want. Do you care all that much about mpg, if you do you would be looking towards the new ls motors....

 

Here is site to checkout with over a 100 different engines built for the street. Ryanscarpage.50megs.com Have fun and good luck.

 

The biggest question is what is your budget?

 

.
Get yourself a 70 LT1 or build it to those exact specifications. It will look stock for the car and no one but you will know the difference. Runs great with 92/93 and is quick from the red lites.

Thats my take anyway. I like the HP it generates as opposed to anything later. If you use a hydraulic cam then your not to the 70 LT1 and your on your own......

 

Based on all your different posts in the Tech, Z06, C4, C6 and other forums it sounds like you want to either buy or build a car but don't know exactly what you want. Or perhaps you are shooting for more then one.

Your questions are broad in scope and provide little info to help give you pertinent responses. Asking 1000 forum members which is the best engine is like asking what's everyone's favorite color.

I am sure many would be happy to help. But if you could really narrow down what it is you want to achieve and how much you are willing to spend to get there it would be much easier.

 

If you install a high-powered engine, you will also need to upgrade the tranny, rear gear, and [possibly] the U-joints for parts that will take that much power.

 

LSx. LS1 OR LS2 OR LS3 OR LS7 OR A 5.3L OR A 6.0L. Period end of story best for what ever the occasion. Be ready for jusnk to break though and also be ready to spend a bunch of money.

 

If you're looking for a crate motor, personally I think the next car I do I'll just buy the motor from GM. I had a lot of trouble out of one I had built for me, got stranded a couple of times (broken rods, loss of oil pressure, various things. It was just a bad build all around). After months of tinkering it was never right and ended up getting replaced. Of course I didn't get to enjoy the car throughout any of that period, and I was worried about the next one having similar problems (which fortunately it hasn't). And this was a very reputable builder with a long history of building performance motors. Sometimes crap happens. He made it right and I'm more than happy with it now, it just sucked for a while.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd just buy a crate motor from GM. I see a lot of great crate deals from Year One and other sites, but when you think about it it's really only a good deal if you NEVER have a problem with it. Because obviously they're not going to fly a mechanic out to fix it, they'll want you to send the motor back if there is something wrong. So you have to pull it (spending your time, or your money if you aren't doing it yourself), crate it, and send it back, paying the freight for it. Then they're likely to say whatever the problem was was your fault because you were too hard on it or something. Forget that... if I buy a GM crate and have any problems with it, I can take the car to any Chevy dealer and they'll fix it under warranty. That's worth a couple extra bucks I think.

 

I went ZZ383,Hooker headers and sidepipes,custom 700R4 (Phoenix Transmission). Driven a lot, cruise set up, no more racing but the 425hp would hold it's own I think. Three inches taller than stock so a 4 inch rise insert on hood ...

 

This GM crate gives you performance and warranty. You can't build an engine as cheap as you can buy this setup.