5 Of The Most Powerful Engines Put In Chevy Corvettes, Ranked By Horsepower

Chevy has built some of the most iconic engines in the history of the automobile. Whether it's the small block V8 that has powered more cars than any other in history, or the myriad engines that powered Chevy's most famous muscle cars, only a few other automakers have reached the peaks that Chevy has. One of the most recognizable cars in Chevy's lineup is the venerable Corvette. It has everything you would want in a sports car. It's fast, has a distinctive design, and some of them are so rare that the closest any of us will get to driving one is seeing them in pictures. 

However, more than anything, the Corvette is known for being fast. Throughout its history, the Corvette has always been one of the fastest American-made production cars. Chevy knew that drag racers would enjoy the car fairly early on and built models tailor-made for the experience. The Corvette Z06 model can trace its roots to the early 1960s.

Little has changed over the years, and today's Corvette still houses the most robust engine in Chevy's lineup. So, which engines have been the strongest? Below are five of the most powerful mills ever put into a Corvette. As technology improves, so have horsepower numbers, so don't be too surprised that all the engines are from recent Corvettes and not from older generations. 

The GM LT2 is an interesting engine. It received nearly universal praise when it was released in 2019. The engine was designed for only one purpose, and that was for use in the Chevy Corvette C8. It shared some stuff with the LT1 engine but was more powerful in every way, and Corvettes equipped with the engine were faster than their predecessors. However, despite that, GM only made this engine for a few years, closing the curtains on it in 2023. That means that its predecessor survived longer than it did. 

The LT2 is a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8, just like the LT1, but Chevy managed to squeeze out a little more power. It came in a single configuration that made 495 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque, topping the LT1 in both measurements. Corvettes equipped with this monster could do a 60 MPH sprint in just 2.8 seconds and a quarter mile in a hair over 11 seconds. Both speeds outpaced the prior generation of the Corvette, making the LT2 a true upgrade from the LT1. 

Chevy used this engine from 2020 to 2023, and it was only ever featured in the Corvette C8. Like its predecessor, the cars had all sorts of neat features, like a 12-inch customizable display and adjustable dampers. Customers could fork out the $65,000 MSRP for the base 'Vette, but that number could easily get up to over $100,000 depending on how you optioned it out. 

The LT4 is where things start to get serious. Officially, the engine is called the GM LT4, but you can buy a Chevy-branded LT4 as a crate engine. Unlike some other Chevy small block V8s, this one was used in a number of vehicles across the GM lineup, including the Cadillac CTS-V, CT5-V Blackwing, the C7 Corvette Z06, the Camaro ZL1, and the Cadillac Escalade-V. General Motors started making this engine in 2014 and is still in use today, namely in the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing. 

The LT4 is a tale of multiple engines. In the Chevy C7 Corvette Z06, this 6.2-liter supercharged V8 made 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque. However, that is not the strongest iteration of the LT4. That goes to the Escalade-V, which has a variant that does 682 horsepower and 653 lb-ft of torque, while the CT5-V Blackwing gets a variant that does 668 horsepower and 659 lb-ft of torque. For this article, we'll use the 650-horsepower number, as it is the one used in the Chevy Corvette. 

Chevy's addition of a supercharger to this engine helped a lot, and, unsurprisingly, a Corvette with 650 horsepower can go really fast. Per Car and Driver, a Z06 equipped with this engine can get to 60 MPH in 3.1 seconds, with the publication noting that the real problem is getting the car off the line without utterly destroying your tires. It is, to date, the third most powerful engine ever put in a Corvette. 

Say hello to the second-strongest engine that Chevy has ever put into a Corvette. The GM LT5 was the final 6.2-liter V8 in a Corvette before the 5.5-liter flat-plane V8 took over. It's not dissimilar from its 6.2-liter predecessors like the LT4 and the LT2. At the time of its production, it was the single most powerful engine that GM produced, and, in an unusual twist, it was discontinued after just one year. 

So, let's get to the brass tacks. This supercharged 6.2-liter V8 outputs a monstrous 755 horsepower and 715 lb-ft of torque. It was just over 100 horsepower stronger than the LT4 engines in previous Corvettes. This showed up on the timer as well, as the 2019 Corvette ZR1 — the only Corvette to have this engine — could scoot to 60 MPH in under 3 seconds and clear a quarter mile in under 11 seconds. Due to its design, this engine couldn't even be sold in Europe, and reportedly, only 3,000 Corvettes with an LT5 exist in the wild. 

There were also some modifications that owners could use to make the horsepower a little higher. For example, there was a performance intake package that could increase horsepower to 772. However, for this article, we'll use the 755-horsepower figure since that's the one people know. 

Chevy got a lot of attention when it released the largest flat-plane-crankshaft V8 ever made with the 5.5-liter LT6. The original engine was a naturally aspirated monster that could put out 670 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque. Chevy used that engine for one year in 2023, and it was stashed in a Corvette C8 Z06. That alone would put it on this list. The next-generation LT7 is an evolution of the 5.5-liter flat-plane V8 with enough upgrades to warrant a new name. The biggest change, though, is that the LT7 is a twin-turbo engine, and that's where the train leaves the proverbial rails for Chevy. 

The LT7 puts that twin turbo to good use as it makes an eye-watering 1,064 horsepower and 828 lb-ft of torque. That's right up there with the strongest engines made by Dodge and other competitors. This is also the most recent engine to fit into a Corvette, with the 2025 and 2026 Corvette ZR1 both sporting the engine. It is laughably fast, achieving 60 MPH in a scant 2.5 seconds and executing a quarter-mile run in 9.5 seconds. Usually, you have to modify a car to make it go that fast. 

With more sports cars going the EV route, monsters like the LT7 will become fewer and further between, so it's best to enjoy these things while they last. Unless you're a professional driver, your best bet is to enjoy this engine at a safe distance, because it's not messing around.

Modders often get a whole lot more horsepower out of an engine than the manufacturer does. This is mostly due to the fact that manufacturers have standards and regulations to which they must adhere, whereas most modders don't have to worry about that. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the strongest engine ever installed in a Corvette was modified, not stock. The strongest such engine we could find was a modified LT2 that was stocked to the gills with modifications, and it's one serious machine. 

The original engine was a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 that could output 495 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque. Once modified, the engine is capable of doing 1,385 horsepower at the rear wheels along with 1,206 lb-ft of torque. It is every bit as fast as you would expect, clearing a quarter mile in 8.644 seconds at 170.71 MPH, making it faster than the LT7. There isn't a measurement for 60 MPH, but we imagine it's somewhere between "lol" and "zoom." 

This modified LT2 is housed in a C8 Corvette and was modified by Extreme Turbo Systems. The modifications include a twin-turbo system with a liquid-to-air intercooler and heat exchanger, along with an absurd number of other modifications to both the car's hardware and software. At the time the modifications were made public, it was claimed to be the first Chevy Corvette over 1,000 horsepower, beating out the LT7-powered C8 by just one year.