Lately, it seems like we can’t go anywhere without someone bringing up the rise of electric vehicles. And this year at PRI, as we cruised around the show, we saw our fair share of  EVs. In fact, they had a room dedicated to them. As we made our way to the Chevrolet Performance booth, we noticed that Project X had an EV conversion as well, which made us grimace for a split second. But as we continued to walk through the booth, we noticed something. For now, all of Chevrolet’s high-performance parts are for internal combustion engines.

While we don’t fully know if the EV is here to take over, we took peace in noting that Chevy is still coming up with new products for engines. One example that proves this idea and caught our attention was Chevrolet Performance’s LSX-SC cylinder head. These units are the same heads perched on the supercharged COPO 350, but they have undergone some changes. Bill Martens, special programs manager at Chevrolet Performance, gave us the details. He said, “This head was initially introduced for the COPO supercharged engines, but since then, we’ve adapted it and broadened the coverage and it can be used on the LSX LS7. This is a high-flowing performance head with a thick deck and good valves designed to handle 1,400-1,500 horsepower boosted engines.”

The Chevrolet Performance COPO Supercharger heads can be purchased in three different configurations. You can get them bare as cast (PN 19417408), bare CNC-machined (PN 19417887), or completely assembled (PN 19417888).

PN 19417888 Features:

• Made of A356 aluminum with low-pressure casting and Hot Isostatic Pressing for enhanced strength and material density
• CNC-machined intake and exhaust ports
• CNC-machined combustion chambers
• Includes valve seats and valve guides installed
• Valve seats and guides designed to accommodate 2.20-inch (intake) and 1.6-inch (exhaust) valves
• Assembled head includes 2.20-inch intake and 1.61-inch valves and beehive-type valve springs installed

So our conversation with Martens told us a couple of things. While Chevrolet Performance is dabbling in the EV market with its eCrate motor program, they are still working on high-performance parts for internal combustion engines. After all, they just released the baddest, naturally aspirated big-block Chevrolet crate engine we have ever seen. They are even taking the time to work on existing components and make them better, as we saw with the COPO heads, and that’s good news. 

Hot rodding is alive and well, and if you visit Chevrolet Performance’s website, you will see exactly what we’re talking about.