The Corvette has historically been a world beater as a result of its primitive yet incredible small block push-rod V-8, plastic body, and wildly cheap interior and production costs. Take the C4 ZR1 as a perfect example. Anyway, that has been changing in recent years, and now Corvettes are made of carbon fiber and have interiors that share zero components with Geo Metros. The people charged with pricing the ZO6 have added a new optional extra to the ZO6 lineup: you can now build the flat-plane crank, 5.5-liter, LT6 V-8 yourself at the Corvette factory in Kentucky.
This is not the first time the Build Your Own Engine (BYOE) option has been available to Corvette buyers. The process worked by you, the ’Vette buyer, essentially following the production line and going from station to station with other engine builders and simply doing what they do. Now, You stay in one area while the engine parts are brought to you, and you assemble the entire engine all at once under the VERY watchful eye of a Corvette master engine builder. Once the engine is built, it is put on the dyno, and then dropped into the car.
We first saw the first process back in 2011 for the C6 ZO6 and ZR1, which would set you back $5,800, then it disappeared until 2015 for the C7 when it only cost $5,000. Expect it to cost a bit more this time since the LT6 is much more complicated with a lot more moving parts.
The BYOE program is set to start in the second quarter of 2023. However, if you have not put down a deposit for a new C8, then it will be a long wait as Chevrolet stopped taking orders for ZO6s earlier this year.
It is a solid question. Having normal people in your factory building engines seems like a recipe for disaster. However, we have seen how much manufacturers hate it when people buy their cars and immediately sell them for double the sticker price.
Perhaps this is a way to keep people from treating C8s like an investment and go back to treating them like the great sports car that they are. Hopefully, the fact that some rando built the engine and not a master engine builder would both decrease the desirability of that particular Corvette, while increasing the owner’s sentimental value of their ZO6.
It also may be to show the world just how rock solid the LT6 is. It is familiar to a Lamborghini V-10 or Ferrari V-8 as the max horsepower is achieved at over 8,000 RPM, and they all make an incredible noise. Except Ferrari and Lamborghini employ the most skilled automotive craftspeople in the world, and don’t let just anyone touch their engines.
Source: CorvetteBlogger
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