Tow Boat Confidential: Is Malibu's Corvette Model a Future Collectible?
Malibu's powerful special-edition takes styling cues from the famed American sports car-and the results are stunning.
February 13, 2008
his quick-revving 505 horsepower engine will make you wonder if all the fun you're having in your new Malibu Corvette Limited Edition Sport-V is legal.
Even casual observers of the collector car market know the value of an automobile is greater when it has its original engine. Back in the day, unthinking neanderthals would remove highly-prized engines from, say, a Corvette, replace it with something else and use the original engine for other purposes. Thus the importance of a "matching numbers" Corvette.
Someday the importance of an original engine also might apply to Malibu's Corvette Limited Edition Sport-V, particularly if it has the delectable 7.0-liter LS7 engine. For you nonmetric types, that's 427 cubic inches. This engine is so special, so expensive to develop and so freakishly powerful, it's surprising that General Motors would license another company to use it. But skiers and wakeboarders who love obscene amounts of horsepower will be glad it did.
Based on the same pushrod V-8 architecture that Chevrolet uses in its cars and trucks, the LS7 is an aluminum block with pressed-in steel cylinder liners. Marinized for Malibu by Indmar Marine Engines, the LS7 features a forged-steel crankshaft and main bearing caps, and an 8-quart dry-sump oiling system. If that term is confusing, here's a simple explanation of dry-sump systems.
On a wet-sump system, the oil supply sits in the bottom of the oil pan beneath the engine. Wet-sumps are susceptible to oil sloshing-particularly during hard cornering, braking and accelerating-that can create air pockets in the oil supply to vital engine parts, which can lead to galling and scoring. Not good. According to GM product-information sheets, the LS7's, "8-quart reservoir delivers oil at a constant pressure to a conventional-style oil pump pickup at the bottom of the engine. The pressurized oil feed keeps the oil pickup continually immersed in oil at cornering loads exceeding 1g."
Also cast from aluminum, the cylinder heads feature huge runners to feed the beast up to its 7,100 rpm rev limiter. Using five-axis CNC equipment, GM machined the intake and exhaust ports for torque at low rpm and ample airflow at high rpm. Intake valves are made of super-strong, feather-light titanium and the exhaust valves are sodium-filled to shed heat quickly. To save weight in the rotating assembly, GM cast the connecting rods from titanium and the pistons from aluminum. The 70 CC combustion chambers provide for a 11:1 compression ratio, which means premium fuel is a must.
The result of all these trick pieces is a quick-revving 505 horsepower engine that will make you wonder if all the fun you're having in your new Malibu Corvette Limited Edition Sport-V is legal. Either way, equipping this boat with this engine-and leaving it that way-might actually make the Corvette Limited Edition Sport-V, dare we say, collectible.
For more information, check out
www.malibuboats.com
.
