'The oddball, the anachronism, the redheaded stepchild-the Gen II small-block can be considered all these things. Conversely, it can also be regarded as the ultimate production version of the original small-block Chevy and a testbed for the technology that would advance the small-block into the new millennium. Since its introduction in 1992, much ink has been spilled (some in the pages of this very magazine) about the Gen II engine. We'll spare you the nostalgic musings on Chevrolet engine families and get to the heart of the matter: LT1s are available in junkyards right now. Complete engine, transmission, and ECM/wiring harness combinations are selling on eBay for less than a grand. So we thought it was time to take another look at these engines. We wanted to know why they were made in the first place, how they differ from the original small-block Chevy, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their performance potential is, and what people are doing with them.
| LT1 BY THE YEAR |
| 1992: | Debut in Y-body |
| 1993: | Introduced in F-body |
| 1994: | Introduced in B/D-body |
| * Mass Airflow engine manage- ment replaces speed-density system |
| * Sequential fuel injection |
| * Smaller-displacement 4.3L L99 available in Caprice |
| * Opti-Spark upgrades made to B/D |
| applications |
| 1995: | Upgrades to Opti-Spark applied to |
| Y- and F-body |
| 1996: | LT4 in manual transmission Y-body |
| OBD-II computers |
| B/D-body line discontinued |
| 1997: | LS1 replaces LT1/4 in Y-body |
| LT1 remains in F-body, LT4 installed |
| in some special-edition models |
| Y-body: | Corvette |
| F-body: | Camaro |
| Firebird |
| B-body: | Caprice |
| Roadmaster |
| D-body: | Fleetwood |