Chevrolet LS Engine Family

"LS" is not one engine. It is three generations, six displacements and more than twenty RPO codes built across twenty-five years, and the displacement alone will not order you the right one — we stock five different 5.3L and five different 6.0L engines that are not the same part. What identifies an LS is its RPO code, and that code is printed on a label in your glovebox. We hold 1,405 of these engines, the largest single family in our catalogue.

Find your RPO code first

If the label is missing, the 8th character of the VIN narrows it down, and the table below maps the codes we stock to their VIN digits.

What we stock, by RPO code

This is our actual inventory, not a reference chart. Prices are the entry price for that code.

RPO	Litres	Years	VIN digit	Units	From
L96	6.0	2010–2019	G	115	$2,256
LC8	6.0 CNG	2011–2019	B	74	$4,047
LMG	5.3	2007–2014	0	61	$2,060
LC9	5.3	2007–2014	3 or 7	48	$1,767
LY6	6.0	2007–2010	K or N	37	$2,651
LY5	5.3	2007–2009	J	24	$1,989
L94	6.2	2010–2014	F	24	$3,723
L9H	6.2	2009–2013	2	23	$4,408
L76	6.0	2007–2009	Y	20	$3,920
LS3	6.2	2008–2015	W	18	$6,167
L92	6.2	2007–2008	8	13	$2,655
LH6	5.3	2007–2009	M	12	$2,550
LQ4	6.0	2007	U	10	$1,767
LSA	6.2 supercharged	2009–2015	P	10	$19,719
LS7	7.0	2006–2013	E or Y	9	$19,803
LM7	5.3	2005–2007	T	8	$1,279
L59	5.3	2005–2007	Z	8	$1,281
LS1	5.7	1999–2004	G	6	$5,096
LS2	6.0	2005–2009	H or U	6	$8,418
LR4	4.8	2007	V	6	$1,475
L33	5.3 alloy	2005–2007	B	6	$1,866
LQ9	6.0	2007	N	3	$2,158
LS6	5.7	2004	S	1	$16,530

Read the 5.3 rows together and the point of this page becomes obvious: LM7, L59, L33, LH6, LY5, LMG and LC9 are all "5.3 litre Chevy V8", they span $1,279 to $2,550, and they are not interchangeable without knowing which you need.

Gen III or Gen IV — five ways to tell

	Gen III	Gen IV
Crank reluctor wheel	24x	58x
Cam position sensor	Top rear of the block	On the timing chain cover
Cam gear	Three bolts	One bolt
Cylinder heads	Cathedral port	Cathedral, or rectangle port on the 6.0 and 6.2 truck engines
Fuel management	None	Provision for AFM and variable valve timing

The reluctor wheel and the cam sensor are the two that decide whether an engine will run on your harness and computer. A 58x engine will not run on a 24x controller without a change of reluctor wheel or a change of controller. Put the cam sensor location and the reluctor count on the same checklist as the RPO code.

Rectangle port heads are on the Gen IV 6.0 and 6.2 truck engines — LY6, L96, L76, L92, L9H and L94 among the codes we stock. They also use offset intake rockers, so intake and exhaust rockers are not interchangeable side to side; cathedral port heads use the same rocker both sides.

AFM: the thing that kills these engines

Active Fuel Management, sometimes called Displacement on Demand, shuts down four of the eight cylinders under light load. The collapsing lifters it uses to do that are the defining failure of the Gen IV era — a lifter fails, often takes the camshaft lobe with it, and you get a tick that becomes a misfire.

This is worth knowing when you are choosing between two engines of the same displacement. Among our 5.3s, LM7 and L59 are the pre-AFM Gen III units and start at $1,279 and $1,281; the AFM-era LC9 and LMG start at $1,767 and $2,060. If the AFM lifters are what killed your engine, buying the same build again is a decision worth making deliberately.

The 5.3L deep-dive, including oil consumption on the AFM engines, is on the GM 5.3L Vortec guide.

L83, L86 and LT1 are not LS engines

We stock them, and they are easy to tell apart by year: anything from 2014 onward in a Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Suburban or Escalade is Gen V.

• L83 — 5.3L, 2014–2020, VIN C. 47 units from $1,864.
• L86 — 6.2L, 2014–2020, VIN J. 43 units from $4,418.
• LT1 — 6.2L Corvette and Camaro. Note that "LT1" also names a completely different 1990s small block, so on this code the year matters more than usual.

What interchanges, and what does not

• The bellhousing pattern is shared across Gen III and Gen IV. This is the reason the family swaps into almost anything.
• Connecting rods interchange, with the LS7's titanium rods as the exception. Gen III rods use a press-fit wrist pin and Gen IV rods a floating pin, so moving to Gen IV rods means Gen IV pistons too.
• Rockers do not interchange side to side on rectangle port heads, because the intake rockers are offset.
• The reluctor wheel and cam sensor must match your controller. This is the one that turns a cheap engine into an expensive project.
• Iron or aluminium. Truck engines are generally iron; the L33 is the aluminium-block 5.3 and the car engines are aluminium. Same bolt pattern, very different weight.

What it costs

Across all 1,405 units: from $1,181, median $2,650, median mileage 54,577. By displacement:

Litres	Units	Years	From	Median	Median mileage
6.0	533	1999–2019	$1,767	$3,137	51,591
5.3	419	1999–2020	$1,181	$2,070	53,656
6.2	199	2007–2020	$2,655	$5,395	48,305
5.7	138	1997–2005	$1,278	$2,162	94,945
4.8	116	1999–2017	$1,278	$1,767	56,792

By make: Chevrolet 666 · GMC 630 · Cadillac 81 · Pontiac 16 · Buick 8. The 5.7 row carries a 94,945-mile median because it is the oldest group — those donor vehicles are now twenty to thirty years old.

Shop it: Chevrolet used engines · Silverado engines · Tahoe engines · Suburban engines · Escalade engines.

What to send us

1. The RPO code from the Service Parts Identification label in the glovebox — this alone settles most orders
2. The full 17-character VIN
3. Whether the car or truck is 2WD or 4WD
4. For a swap rather than a repair: which controller and harness you are running, because that decides 24x or 58x

Before you fit it

• Match the reluctor and cam sensor to your controller before anything else. Everything else is cheaper to fix than this.
• Check the valley cover so you know whether you are buying an AFM engine, and decide deliberately.
• Diagnose why the first engine failed. A collapsed AFM lifter that wiped a cam lobe leaves metal in the oil circuit; replace the oil cooler lines and prove the galleries clean.
• Replace the knock sensors while the intake is off on an engine with them under the valley — a fraction of the cost now versus later.
• Change the oil early on the replacement, at a few hundred miles rather than at the service interval.

What ships with the engine

Every unit is compression and leak-down tested before it is listed and the test sheet ships in the box. Fitment is matched to your VIN before the order goes out. The written warranty is 3 months on 1991–2000 units and 6 months on 2001 and newer, extendable to 3 years — parts only, labour is not included unless you buy a separate labour agreement. Returns run to 7 days with free return shipping, and freight is free to any address in the lower 48. Full terms: engine warranty policy · shipping policy · returns.

Frequently asked questions

More buying guides: all used engine guides · GM 5.3L Vortec · Chrysler 5.7L HEMI