fans have taken to calling it the Shortstar. Although it has a 90° V-angle like the Northstar, the engine block was engineered from scratch, so bore centers are different. It has chain-driven dual overhead cams and four valves per cylinder, but is an even-firing design with a split-pin crankshaft similar to the Buick 3800 engine. The LX5 displaced and produced at 5,600 rpm and at 4,400 rpm. Bore and stroke is . It was also one of GM's first engines to use coil-on-plug ignition. Compression ratio is 9.3:1. The cost of building this engine was high, and it was not used in many vehicles. It was said at the time that a family of premium V6s would follow, with displacements ranging from 3.3 L to 3.7 L, but only the LX5 was ever produced before GM discontinued the Shortstar in favor of their current flagship V6, the High Feature engine, in 2004. The LX5 was entirely different from any other V6 in the GM inventory - the only other DOHC V6 engines ever offered by GM included the Chevrolet Twin Dual Cam produced from 1991-1997, which was made by modifying the traditional Chevy 60-degree OHV block V6 for the dual overhead cams rather than building a DOHC engine from the ground up, and the Cadillac/Holden HFV6 available from 2004 to the present day. These three designs are completely unrelated and leave two gaps in 1998 and 2003 where no DOHC V6 was available from GM (except for the 54 degree Opel V6 used most notably in the first generation Cadillac CTS at launch as well as the Saturn L Series and Catera). This contrasts starkly with competitors practices of evolving engineering over multiple, continuously improving designs. As with the Aurora V8, production stopped with the demise of Oldsmobile. The 3.5L LX5 was on the Ward's 10 Best Engines list for 1999 and 2000. See also GM 60-degree DOHC V6 engine GM High Feature engine Cadillac V8 engine GM Ultra Engine List of GM engines Notes References External links Technical article from AutoSpeed Wiebe Patent #8,740,532, Cylinder Head Stud Kit for the Northstar engine Buick engines Cadillac engines Automotive technology tradenames 1992 introductions V6 engines V8 engines Gasoline engines by model