10 Chevy Garbage Engines (5 That Were Beast Mode)
With Chevy, it’s a roll of the dice—one model might leave you with a total clunker, while another packs the punch of a straight-up beast.
Man, Chevy’s been cranking out engines longer than most of us have been alive, and they’ve made everything from a pint sized 4 cylinder to a growling, fire breathing V8. Chevy engines are either legendary beasts or total duds depending on the motor you’re discussing. It’s kind of a love hate thing.
Those things are royalty in the performance world when it comes to their V8s. Some of 'em are hard as rocks—harder than you and me, tough enough to set your tires on fire all day without ever breaking a sweat. However, let's face it, Chevy has a history of flops too. Some of their engines are so bad you’ll curse the day you turned the key.
Their smaller motors are decent these days: reliable, even — but you know. Look into the history books, and it’s a real history of trial and error before they got a good small engine. Ok, so buckle up because, we’re about to tell the winners from the clunkers. Without getting too deep into the weeds with it, here’s a lowdown on the Chevy engines that should be avoided and the ones that deserve a spot in your garage.
Garbage: “California” 305 V8
It was not easy times for American muscle in the 1980s. However, those big, bad V8s we all love have gotten hit hard thanks to stricter emissions regs. But in California? Oh, it was even worse. If Chevy wanted to continue selling the Corvette there, they had to neuter their small block V8 to something downright sad. With a 5 liter smallblock V8 they slapped into Cali Corvettes, they barely wrung out 180 horsepower. Cheap small blocks can be tempting to pull, but I’m gonna do you a solid and tell you that this is a hard pass.
Garbage: Copper Cooled Series C Inline 4
Whoah, a blast from the past—Chevy’s copper cooled engines were a pretty bold experiment, that fizzled out in the 1920s. The concept was being able to one up air cooling, as was all the rage at the time. It worked, as long as you made the car keep moving. These engines butted around in the roaring ’20s, but get stuck in the crazy traffic jams of the roaring ’20s and these engines became boiling messes and lost power faster than a leaky tire. Except two, every one of them was recalled and scrapped by Chevy.
Garbage: G140 1.4L Inline 4
The Chevy Chevette was never designed to attract attention; it’s about as basic as cars come. Cheap, plain and simple... It is the same for the engine. Chevy was smart enough to use a little help from Isuzu and slap in a 1.4L inline 4 that’s kid on gas but left in the power dust. How much power, you ask? A jaw-dropping 52 horsepower. Yep, that’s it.
Garbage: “Iron Duke” 2.5L Inline 4
Imagine yourself seeing a classic Chevy Camaro, what’s under the hood! You’d probably thought it would have a roaring V8. And so in 1982 Chevy decided the Camaro should have an inline-4 somehow and it was bad. How bad? How about 90 horsepower and a 0–60 time of 20 seconds? Yep, twenty. At this point, calling it a muscle car is a joke — it can barely outrun a tractor.
Garbage: Ecotec 2.2L Inline 4 (Pre-2006)
Most of the newer Ecotec engines are fine, but the pre 2006 ones? Total troublemakers. Back then, these things popped up in a lot of Chevys, and the timing chain was the biggest headache, cause it was like it was on life support and it was always needing this part or that part. It was no powerhouse or fuel s... if you even kept it running. That’s nothing to write home about.
Garbage: 3400 V6
One bad decision can sometimes make a decent engine into an all out nightmare sometimes. GM’s 60 degree V6 engines aren’t anything to write home about but they mostly do the job, all but the 3400 V6. That one’s a disaster in the making. Why? DexCool was a new coolant formula the GM decided to use and it so proved to be a ticking time bomb. Sadly, this stuff would break down into little nanobot kind of things that would eat away at the key components, like the head gaskets and you'd end up with very large coolant leaks and your engine overheating in spectacular fashion. One to definitely avoid.
Garbage: 2300 Inline 4
Another example of a good engine shot down by a bad idea was the 2300 inline-4 of the Chevy Vega. While using a silica coating on the cylinder walls to avoid the standard sleeves proved to be clever for Chevy. Innovative? Sure. When cooling issues cropped up, however, that fancy coating came off like a cheap magician's addition, and everything went to hell in a hurry. And seriously, it’s damaged to the point where some engines literally self destruct.
Garbage: 350 Diesel V8
GM’s most hated old engine is the Olds Diesel. Diesel engines got a dirty, underwhelming reputation for good reason—this thing. It was a total mess. It was basically a diesel V8 slapped together from a gas V8. It was pathetically weak with only 120 horsepower, but that’s not even the worst part. One drove clunky, rough, awful. It’s no wonder why it’s a legend for all the wrong reasons.
Garbage: 267 Small Block V8
They are icons—there isn’t another car company out there sporting small block V8’s that are as tough, dependable, and as built to pack a punch. Of course, then there’s the 267, the oddball that skipped that memo altogether. One of those dropped into the lineup during the dark days of emissions controls in '79, this pint sized V8 'borrowed' parts from the beloved 350 and left the performance at home. The car struggled along for only three years before Chevy put it out of its misery and followed it up with the equally underwhelming 305 V8 we’ve already roasted. What a letdown.
Garbage: LD2 Quad 4 (Pre-1995)
Let’s get one thing straight: The Quad 4 isn’t a bad engine after all. In fact, their tuning potential made the later versions famous. But what about those first generation models? They were a mixed bag. Sure, 150 horsepower out of a small motor was certainly impressive back then, but they didn't include balance shafts and the experience driving them was abrupt, like a paint shaker in the hood. Later versions straightened things out, but if you want comfort steer clear of the OG Quad 4.
Beast Mode: L65 327 V8
Today, we’re living the dream with muscle cars galore and tons of killer crate motors for your project builds. However, we have to remember that this expression of power mania began. Enter the 'Mighty Mouse.' A decade earlier Chevy’s small block V8 first appeared, and back in 1963 this evolution cranked out 375 horsepower. So good it ended up in just about every high performance Chevy from that era. Talk about a legend.
Beast Mode: L27 427 V8
I mean, it’s easy to see what today’s muscle cars put out—700 horsepower straight from the factory—and think the old school rides weren’t so impressive. Now in 1969, what would become the Dodge Demon of its day, was the Yenko Camaro. In 1969, they factory built a beast and while it only packed 425 horsepower, that thing scared the piss out of every other car on the strip.
Beast Mode: LS6 454 V8
Of course, long before Chevy’s LS V8s literally took over the streets and drag strips, there was a one year only Chevelle LS6, a masterpiece of 1970. But, this beast had it's very own 454 big block V8, putting out an unbelievable 450 HP! In 1970. Talk about ahead of its time. These days, very few LS6 Chevelles exist, but if you ever come across one you’ve got one hell of a classic muscle car.
Beast Mode: LS7 427 V8
Now that LS1 is here, Chevy’s been on a roll, refining and improving the engine about like it’s a lifetime love affair. The LS7, meanwhile, is a factory crate motor that’s pure fire power. Drop this beast into just about anything because it can easily be tuned and modded to unleash further fury. The stock 505 horsepower isn’t not that impressive—plenty monster right out the door.
Beast Mode: LS9 376 V8
I’m sure you’ve seen a C6 Corvette ZR1 in your day and noticed that little window in the middle of the hood. Under that window is pure magic as the supercharged LS9 is the most powerful small block Chevy ever built at the factory. And of course it’s an absolute rocket with 638 horsepower. The LS engines have no right to status as legends, but there’s a reason they’ve earned it.