What Sets Them Apart, And Which One Is The Best?

Chevrolet introduced the legendary LS V8 engine to the world way back in 1997 as the engine powering the new C5 Corvette. That first engine, the LS1, was a 5.7 liter, aluminum block, pushrod V8 that, in Corvette trim, produced around 350 horsepower at 5600 RPM. The next year, in ’98, the LS found its way into GM’s F-body cars—the Camaro and Firebird/Trans Am. By 1999, an iron-block variant with aluminum heads had found its way into The General’s truck lineup and powered everything from Silverados and SUVs to vans and heavy trucks. To say that the LS got around is a gross understatement.

The thing that made the LS so great was its versatility. LS-series mills came in a dizzying array of shapes and sizes, all with different displacements, power outputs, piston sizes, but—and this is the best part—all based on the same engine block. This meant that whatever LS-series engine an enterprising gearhead got their hands on, they could easily hop it up with off-the-shelf or junkyard parts for not a lot of money. If they wanted to spend a lot of money, however, the extremely robust aftermarket that grew up around the LS had more upgrades and speed parts than you could list off in a week of Sundays. The sky was really the limit when it came to customizing an LS.

LS-series engines powered a large portion of GM’s lineup for almost 20 years. In that time the platform gained a reputation as a kind of gearhead’s LEGO set, and custom cars with “LS swaps” were so common as to become a cliche. The glorious reign of the LS came to an end in 2014, however, when it was replaced by the new, high-tech LT.

The Generation V Small Block V8, LT1 to its friends and admirers, debuted in 2014 as the engine powering the new C7 Corvette. The third generation of Chevy V8s to bear the LT name—the first generation LT was built from 1970 to 1972, and the second from 1992 to 1997—it was a clean sheet design that took all the lessons learned from the LS’s success and improved on them.

Like its predecessor, the LT1 was an aluminum block, single cam, fuel-injected, pushrod V8. It displaced 376 of God’s own cubic inches—6.2 liters for our friends on the Continent—and made around 455 horses at 6000 RPM in the C7. Also like its predecessor, the LT1 quickly broke containment and found its way, in one configuration or another, into a bunch of GM’s other products. As of this writing, in February of 2025, the LT-series is still soldiering on in more variants and displacements than you can shake a stick at.

When it came out, the motoring press spilled a ton of ink—both real and digital—comparing the LT1 to the LS. The block was tougher, thanks to reworked and reinforced water jackets. It had better oiling, with oil jets that sprayed the bottom of each piston to reduce combustion temp and allow for higher compression and reduced friction. Other improvements included bigger head bolts, direct fuel injection, better flow through the heads, built-in variable valve timing, and smarter engine management. It was, by almost every metric, a huge improvement over the LS.

Look, you guys probably aren’t going to like this, but the answer is, “it depends”. No, listen, hang on: While the LT is technically better due to being the more modern product with more advanced features, “better” is kind of academic here. The more accurate question is, “what do you need it for?” Do you need a cheap, reliable, infinitely modifiable Chevy V8 with robust aftermarket support, or do you need a high-tech wündermill you can squeeze maximum horsepower out of? That’s the $64,000 question.

There are roughly a bazillion LS-series engines in the wild, and they can often be had for whatever change you have in your pockets and the center console of your car. It’s still possible, easy even, to go down to the pick ‘n pull, grab an old LS block and stock go-fast parts off various cars in the GM section and put together a fire-breathing, tire-shredding, patch-laying monster that’ll drop into just about any GM vehicle made since the late-90s. It’s modern hot rodding at its purest, and it’s what makes the LS-series as big a deal as it is.

If you need a powerful and more modern engine, well, the LT is your engine. It’s lighter, stouter, and can handle more horsepower than the LS. It’s overall more modern and more efficient, too, if you’re into that kind of thing, and has fancy pants VTT built in. It doesn’t have the aftermarket support the LS has, but it’s only been on the market a decade at this point. That’s another selling point for the LT, it’s still new, for various metrics of “new”, and probably has a few more years of faithful service in it if the lack of news about the Sixth-Gen Small-Block lately is anything to go by.

Both the LS and LT-series are phenomenal engines. The beloved, long-running, wildly successful LS is still a great choice for just about any application, and the high-tech LT is both a worthy replacement and a great technical achievement. Ultimately, though, the best engine is the one you’re running, and don’t forget it.