GM CT525 Crate Motor Continues To Make Waves In The Northeast

GM CT525 Crate Motor Continues To Make Waves In The NortheastIn the seemingly constant attempt to keep the costs of racing down, the General Motors CT525 Crate Engine has entered the chat over the past couple of years in both the Late Model and Dirt Modified ranks having a considerable amount of success in both.

During the 2025 racing season it was allowed in the Limited Late Model ranks at Potomac Speedway, Winchester Speedway, Hagerstown Speedway and Port Royal Speedway. When it came to the Modified side of things it was permitted at Can-Am Speedway, Autodrome Granby, Le RPM Speedway along with the Short Track Super Series, Bridgeport Motorsports Park and New Egypt Speedway.

The CT525 is a crate racing engine developed by Chevrolet Performance that is based on the LS3 6.2-liter V8 found in the Corvette but modified for circle track and dirt racing applications. “The 525 is a working man’s high performance circle track race engine,” said Don Blackshear who spearheaded the original development of the 602 Crate Engine which is most commonly used in Northeast Sportsman machines. “It produces enough power to compete with the built motors in the applications that we have put it in, they are easy to maintain, use a hydraulic roller cam, there’s no valve adjustment. The weekly maintenance on it is to service the air filter, you change the oil on it every four to five nights of racing and just go have fun.” “In the Limited Late Model world it has been very competitive and recently we’ve had some success in the center-steer Dirt Modifieds. When the track conditions get slick these motors really shine against the open engines.”

In a day and age where there aren’t many ‘car people’ left and technology has slowly taken over, the CT525 can be dropped right in and is pretty much plug and play. “People’s lives are so busy now with kids, or girlfriends or vacations, they aren’t spending five nights a week in the garage working on this stuff,” Blackshear noted. “This engine is really good for people who race Sportsman cars and be able to move up in class and still have the same basic maintenance program. I have wives and girlfriends that call me up and thank me because they have their husband back because he’s not in his garage for three nights working on his engine. It fits most people’s lifestyles today. “We try and run them for 1000-1200 laps and change the valve springs on them. Most of the guys run them for 50-60 races then they’ll rebuild them. That costs anywhere from $5,500 to $6,000 then you can go another 50-60 races.”

Blackshear also noted that there is a repair option on these motors. “If you have an issue, we have a repair program structured with DIRTcar (not DIRTcar Northeast) to do repairs on them and the other sanctioning bodies across the country honor our seal program. Worse case scenario, if you needed another one, just get one off the shelf, bolt on your accessories and away you go,” Blackshear noted. “In the built motor world, there are parts shortages everywhere and then there is machining time, assembly time and that all adds to the cost.”

Ryan Bartlett picked up a pair of wins with it at Can-Am Motorsports Park in New York while Ryan Godown used it at New Egypt Speedway and came from behind over the last month of the season to pick up the Modified championship with it.

On the Limited Late Model side of things regionally, Kyle Hardy had an outstanding year picking up 11 total wins with it at a number of race tracks. “I was surprised at how well it ran. I think this is going to be a really good deal. Look at the cost, it runs well, it races well and the two guys that had them at New Egypt this year said that it’s really easy to drive, it’s more forgiving. Both Ryan (Godown) and Johnny (Bangs) said that it is a good piece,” said New Egypt Speedway General Manager Mark Blackwell. “Am I going to put another 25lbs on them? I probably will. But I’m going to make a rule that after we pick a number, we are not going to be able to add more than x amount of weight to the motor throughout the season. I don’t want to nilly willy around and throw weight on it all year, because that’s not fair to the guys that invest the money in it. It’s just not fair.”

The motor of choice at New Egypt Speedway has been the Spec-358 ever since the track did away with Big Blocks at the end of the 2012 racing season. Blackwell wants to reassure teams that he is not looking to replace the Spec-358 motors. “I know that there are people that say that the motor is too good and that the Spec’s can’t compete with them, I don’t believe that is a fair statement. I believe that Ryan (Godown) is good and that he was hard to beat. Johnny (Bangs) didn’t drive through the field and up to second every week either. He (Godown) said that it ran well and for the money it was a good deal and that he was happy with it, he thought that adding weight wasn’t the best, but he’s dealing with it,” Blackwell affirmed. “Lets take Will Dupree as an example of someone who races at New Egypt Speedway. He has good equipment, he’s not lacking and has access to whatever he needs. If I gave him a 525, will he go and win with it? No, I think he will run with the pack better. I think Ryan having that motor made everybody look at it because he started winning with it. Nobody said anything at the beginning, I didn’t get any complaints. Then when he started winning everyone said that it was no good and it was not fair. At that point, the track was getting a little slower, it wasn’t as heavy, so it was more beneficial to the motor.”

The CT525 got the attention of a number of New Egypt Speedway frontrunners towards the end of the season, especially when Godown won three out of the last four point races with it, just squeaking out the Modified title over Danny Bouc. This made some drivers question whether they needed to bring two cars to the race track on Saturday nights now, one with a Spec and one with a 525 to see what they would need.

“I don’t want to outlaw all these guys’ motors. We’ve done this once at New Egypt when we got rid of the Big Blocks and it was a bad move. We’ve learned from our mistakes so we are not going to outlaw all these engines,” said Blackwell. “I’m trying to make everything fair and it’s going to take a little time. Maybe I should have started it off heavy and gone lighter rather than going light to heavy. I don’t want everyone to go out and buy these things because they feel like they have to. DIRTcar went through this with the W-16 engine and now they all weigh the same,” he continued. “My intentions are not to obsolete the Spec-358 engine. No matter what I have to do, I want to keep them even. If it entails a few pounds here or taking a little bit of timing out of the motor or changing the program in the engine (along with enforcing it). I’m not trying to put us on an island. I wish that he (Godown) had gotten to run that car at our All Star Cup with the extra weight on it to see how it was going to be, but the rain put a hold on that temporarily.”

The motor retails for under $12,000 before a few bolt-on accessories such as pulleys, carburetors, and headers etcetera. “If you do it all yourself, including all the motor mounts, metric bolts and everything else you’re probably looking at around $15,000 before headers instead of $30,000. I think what is really going to be nice is that you don’t have to freshen them every year. “If you are able to get two or three years out of a 525 motor, you are going to save a lot of money in the long run. A freshen up on a Spec-358 is $6,500 to $7,000 and these (525) you don’t even have to take the valve covers off of them,” Blackwell added.

There are close to 500 total CT525 engines out there in the motorsports world today. One thing that seems to draw interest in it both positive and negative ways is the programmable timing map or curve. “The biggest thing that I have found is that a lot of promoters listen to the racers which have given them a lot of false information and that’s probably due to a lack of education about the engine and what it can and can’t do,” Blackshear verbalized. “The unique thing with this engine and its programmable timing map, we can pull the power back and forth from 450 horsepower to 560 horsepower. I try to educate the track officials that what we are doing with the timing map, it can be done with a mechanical distributor. It just takes ingenuity to make it work where with the laptop we can go in and at a certain RPM and move the timing and increase or decrease the torque. Most of the time we are decreasing, most of the groups have gone to that straight line. “There is a tech tool that MSD makes that we put a master program in and if a track or series wants to have a spec timing map, you just plug it in and turn the ignition switch on and in a matter of seconds it’ll turn green or red. If it’s green then all the parameters are correct, if it’s red it’ll tell you which are out of spec.”

For the 2025 racing season, it is expected that Georgetown Speedway in Delaware will mandate a straight line on the tuning map instead of a tunable curve to the driver’s liking. “The timing curve that we use and the one that was in Godown’s car was the one that was made by Blackshear. Johnny Bangs started off with the stock curve from MSD. When Ryan got his, we applied that curve to Bangs’ car and he said that it was a little bit more noticeable on the restarts, otherwise there was no difference,” continued Blackwell. “The Blackshear one is basically a straight line, from the GM curve to a straight line, I think its two and a half degrees of timing difference. I don’t want guys downloading data into the box making a mistake, putting in the wrong program and wind up in tech and getting disqualified. As far as I know, Bridgeport is following the Blackshear program also.”

For the 2026 racing season, Grandview Speedway is considering it with Big Diamond Speedway expected to follow. “The final decision has still not been made. We are leaning towards it, I haven’t seen any negatives yet from Bridgeport or New Egypt. I know they’re still clarifying their rules for next year. I want to work with them so we can keep everything the same,” said Grandview Speedway tech inspector Ed Scott. “After they get their rules nailed down and it all sounds good then we’ll pull the trigger.”