I had no trouble at all fitting a Chev engine. Technically it's a way better piece than any of the Ford plants available at the time I built mine. I still had the option of putting an EFI Windsor in mine. I even owned a Ford Pursuit 250as my daily driver at the time.
The bang for buck and the fact there was going to be a huge amount of local and US development for this motor were definite pluses for me.
Removing the Windsor motors from the equation because of the emissions compliance lets compare the LS1 to the Boss 260/290 and you've got a motor that out of the crate makes as much or more power and weighs 100KG less.
When you compare The LS1 to what ford Australia have produced for V8's and their various performance options the choice has paid off again.
What's a set of ported heads, aftermarket cams and springs and a custom tun cost for a Boss 260? For mine, a Cam, dual springs, titanium retainers, new stem seals, chrome and molly push rods and HP tuners to dial it all in is about $1500 to $2000. A set of CNC ported heads is about $1500 outright (no changeover required). With just those simple mods you'll have a motor that will make 300KW at the wheels (close to 400KW at the crank).
How many aftermarket manifold options are there for the Boss compared to the LS1? You can now buy 3 or 4 different types of single 4 barrel manifolds a couple of tunnel rams and even a dual quad manifold not to mention several different flavors of 8 throttle body manifolds.
Some say the Chev is an ugly looking motor with all the wires and coils on the rocker covers (me included) but with a bit of work it cleans up very nicely.
