How to build a Vette-based V-12 engine, the hard way

For decades, General Motors' LS V-8 engines have been a favorite of hot rodders, since GM builds them by the minute and their pushrod construction makes them easy to tune. Now a Washington shop has gone where few other craftsmen fear to tread by messing with the basic design of the aluminum LS to build a V-12 from the parts of two Corvette-ready V-8s — with a level of ingenuity and skill that's easy to appreciate even if you think a firing order is something Army recruits learn in basic training.

Cutting up and reforming an engine block may seem like little more than superfluous labor — why not just buy a bigger engine to begin with? — but it's a daring, complex undertaking, the welder's equivalent of open-heart surgery. Adding cylinders requires re-routing oil, air, exhaust and water, deducing how the new engine will run and building the supporting parts, heads and computer controls to make it fire without immediately turning into a gas-powered ball of shrapnel. The very idea was so incredible to the old hands of the LS1 forum that several asked for a video to prove they weren't being taunted by expert Photoshop artists.