Remember my Corvette? The sad, 1985 grand tourer that I just couldn’t stop myself from buying last fall? If you’ve forgotten, I forgive you. For most of the winter, I forgot about this poor car, too.

General Motors began using LS V8 engines in its muscle car lineup in 1997 with the introduction of the 5.7-liter LS1, the first of its third-generation small block design. That first iteration, used ...