GAME CHANGER

EngineQuest's new CH364X LS head is going to change the game for the budget-minded builder. Here's what you need to know!

- JOHNNY HUNKINS

When Chevrolet dropped the 427ci LS7 on the performance world in 2006, it was the most powerful naturally aspirated V8 powerplant ever put into mass production. A lot has happened in the interim, including GM's later 650hp LT4 and 755hp LT5 production engines. At other brands, there's the Hellcat family of V8s at Dodge, and Ford's excellent Trinity and Predator V8s, but all of these are supercharged and intercooled. In fact, only super-high-tech, super-expensive flatplane-crank engines (Ford's 5.2-liter four-valve Voodoo and Chevy's 5.5-liter direct-injected LT6) have been able to best the LS7's power output in the past 16 years.

As the first of the rectangle-port cylinder heads that subsequently came through the years (i.e., LS3, L92), the LS7 cylinder head still reigns supreme as the best flowing two-valve production small-block head ever placed in front of hotrodders. The only problem is that they only came on the Corvette Z06 and 427 Convertibles between 2006 and 2014, with a smattering being placed between the fenders of 2015 ZL1 Camaros. Chevrolet Performance briefly produced a 570hp crate motor version called the LS427/570. The LS7 engine is relatively rare, and for that reason they're largely forgotten as fodder for budget-oriented engine builds. But what if you could buy brand-new LS7 heads (and make them magically fit!) for the same price as a pair of rebuilt junkyard cathedral-port heads from a 20-year-old 5.3-liter Tahoe? Do we have your attention now?