What made the LT1 series so successful was greater amounts of power by yielding a broader torque curve enabling full-sized luxury cars to accelerate aggressively to speed onto the freeway. The LT1 engine in displacements of 265 and 350 cubic inches was employed in a number of General Motors vehicles including the 1992-’96 Corvette, 1993-’97 Camaro and Firebird, 1994-’96 Chevy Caprice and Impala, Buick Roadmaster, and the beasty Cadillac Fleetwood luxury rides. There are plenty of OptiSpark ignition choices to meet your ignition needs. Inside the LTCC package, you have the LTCC module and the harness with eight leads, each with a Weatherpack connector and ground wire, a pigtail connector, and four non-harnessed wires. The LT1 coil-on-plug converters with adjustable retard and intelligent rev limiter still use the optical module in the OptiSpark distributor, but without high-voltage passing through it. The Lingenfelter Performance Engineering coil-on-plug conversion solves the OptiSpark ignition issues. You can even retrofit the LT1/LT4 with a cool LS coil-on-plug ignition system and eliminate OptiSpark entirely. MSD, as one example, offers a terrific OptiSpark replacement distributor as does Accel. It has also been refined and improved by both GM and the aftermarket.
However, OptiSpark has always been problematic. The cam-driven water pump with reverse-flow cooling and OptiSpark ignition system were revolutionary. II LT1 Chevrolet small-block (L98) introduced in the 1992 Corvette was an updated version of the time-proven small-block first introduced in 1955 with its share of interesting refinements-some quite controversial. TPI endured and remained an industry standard for years. Tuned Port Injection (TPI), which was tunable and certainly a smashing success. Injection in 1982, which didn’t impress anyone. With and Chevrolet was paying close attention. Those fuel-injected 5.0L Mustangs were a force to be reckoned Performance became more in style, with Chevrolet leading the pack in that age-oldīattle with Ford. By the mid-1970s, the honeymoon was over. In the years to follow, the LT1 lost adrenaline to tough federal emission standards and higher auto insurance rates. It was the last really hot Chevy small-block ever done, with the exception being the high-revving Trans Am-inspired 302 c.i.d. Those in the know remember the original 350 cubic-inch LT1 introduced in 1970 was a real powerhouse with a hot mechanical cam and 370 horsepower on tap from the factory. Chevrolet’s LT1 engine family evokes all kinds of emotions among Bow-Tie guys.