[Jay_LHD3]

I always thought the history of the LT5 engine was interesting, being built by a boat engine company. Though I'm not sure if this is normal practice to outsource the engine work to other companies, but I do remember Harley going to Porsche to help build one of their engines.

From wiki:

For model year 1990, Chevrolet released the Corvette ZR-1 with the radical overhead cam LT5 engine, which shared only the 4.4 inch bore spacing with any previous LT engine. The LT5 was engineered by Lotus Engineering in the UK headed by design manager David Whitehead, the engine was produced by Mercury Marine at Stillwater OK headed by Project Engineer Terry D. Stinson.[2] It was an all-aluminum 5.7 L (349 cu in) small-block V8, but was thoroughly different from any of the other Chevrolet 350 engines. The bore and stroke were both different at 3.9 by 3.66 in (99 by 93 mm) instead of the usual 4 by 3.48 in (102 by 88 mm) and it featured Lotus-designed 32-valve DOHC heads rather than the usual Chevrolet 16-Valve OHV Heads. It was hand built by specialty engine builder, Mercury Marine in Stillwater, OK. This engine produced 375 horsepower (280 kW) and 370 lb·ft (502 N·m) for the 1990-1992 Corvette ZR-1 and jumped to 405 horsepower (302 kW) and 385 lb·ft (522 N·m) from 1993 until its final year in 1995, thanks to cam timing changes and improvements to the engine porting. 1993 also added 4-bolt main bearing caps and an exhaust gas recirculation system. The engine was used only in Corvettes.[3] The LT5 was very expensive, and after six years of production, GM canceled the ZR-1 option. A total of 6939 were produced.[4] The LT5 however wasn't an evolutionary dead end. Despite being discontinued, a new class of premium V8s for Cadillac and eventually Oldsmobile, the dual overhead cam V8 Northstar and its derivatives, drew heavily from the LT5's design and lessons learned from its production.[5]