This is the 63 Fuelie Crate Engine built by Lokar out of Tennessee. Although it looks like a 1963 Corvette’s Rochester-injected small block V8 from 10 paces it’s actually a modern 495 bhp LS3 V8 that’s been cleverly disguised.
This engine is part of the retro-styled LS Classic Series from Lokar, developed to offer classic car owners a period-correct look with vastly improved power, fuel efficiency, and reliability. The engines won’t fool connoisseur of course, but they certainly look at home in those vintage engine bays.
The 1963 Corvette came with an optional Rochester fuel injected V8 that was good for 360 bhp – a heady figure for the era. Image courtesy of Chevrolet.
History Speedrun: Lokar + The LS Classic Series
Lokar, Inc. was founded in 1988 by Skip Walls, who began producing small-batch performance parts and accessories for street rods from a California workshop, before relocating the company to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Over the intervening decades, Lokar built a steady reputation for their precision-machined, American-made parts – including shifters, throttle assemblies, transmission dipsticks, and cable systems, that all became staples in the custom and hot-rod community. The company remains privately owned and continues to manufacture in-house, emphasizing their unusual lifetime warranty coverage and their decades of consistent build quality.
In more recent years Lokar has expanded its focus from parts and accessories to complete engine dress-up systems and crate engines, most notably through the LS Classic Series. This line of crate engines was developed to combine modern GM LS-engines with vintage styling cues from the 1950s through to the 1970s V8s.
The idea behind the LS Classic Series is simple but wildly effective – to retain all the power, efficiency, and reliability of a late-model LS while disguising it to look like a period-correct small block or big block V8. Lokar developed new castings for valve covers, intake manifolds, valley plates, front accessory drives, and distributor housings to achieve the look – everything was engineered, machined, and finished in the US.
At the core of the LS Classic Series lineup sits the LS Classic 63 fuel injected LS3, this is a 6.2 liter V8 producing 495 bhp, it uses GM’s latest LS3 crate foundation with Lokar’s in-house developed intake and fuel-delivery setup that mimics the visual look of a classic 327 or 396, depending on specification.
At the core of the LS Classic Series lineup sits the LS Classic 63 fuel injected LS3, this is a 6.2 liter V8 producing 495 bhp, it uses GM’s latest LS3 crate foundation with Lokar’s in-house developed intake and fuel-delivery setup that mimics the visual look of a classic 327 or 396, depending on specification.
The “63 Fuelie” theme draws directly from the 1963 Corvette’s Rochester-injected small block, giving the engine a period appearance without sacrificing the seamless throttle response, improved fuel efficiency, and cold-start behavior of a modern LS V8.
The engine you see in this article is one of these Lokar-built 63 Fuelie crate engines and it’s now available for sale on eBay through Speedway Motors. Each one comes with a two year warranty, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or hit the Buy It Now button.
Images courtesy of Lokar + Chevrolet
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
