And GM has needed a little... ahem, help, before.
Keith, I was thinking the same thing with regard to the Mazda VICS system when reading about this motor.
All ribbing aside, I think it's cool they are offering a truly bespoke engine in what is supposed to be a special car, and the numbers are bonkers.
Opti said:But when you're dealing with halo cars they can also be accounted as marketing and don't always have to make good business sense in just sales vs costs. Pretty much all manufacturers have done this and GM did it with a weird motor in the corvette in the 90s, the LT5, there was no other variants of that motor.
But, the LT5 wasn't built or designed by GM, which was a good chunk of why support for that engine has been scarce. Some service parts for the engine were simply never available.
There's a story about how when GM execs saw the blueprints for the engine, they had a fit because the bore center was different from the small block Chevy. The designers (Lotus?) said what does it matter, it's just a number, you're not building it so you're not using your tooling, there's no parts sharing, etc. GM guys said no, must be 4.4". So the designers gave in, shrank the bore center, which meant the pistons were smaller, and the valves were smaller...
The ZR1 was also roughly double the price of a base model Corvette.
The "original" LT5 really was a massive leap forward compared to any other GM engine at the time, Mercury (at the time) had the most sophisticated aluminum casting methods arguably in the entire automotive world. The stillwater plant introduced assembly line use of CNC machining which was quite rare at the time, and SPC (statistical process control) using CMM data (way ahead of GM).
"Russ Gee, Director of Chevrolet Powertrain Engineering and Dick Donnelly, Chevrolet Engine Manufacturing Manager, quickly dismissed using a GM engine plant for several reasons. First, these plants were already struggling to meet demand. Second, the LT5 would be a low-volume project unsuited for high-volume facilities. Third, GM’s plants could not produce the engine’s complex aluminum castings. And finally, they were not capable of achieving the necessary level of quality."
https://www.corvette-mag.com/issues/109/articles/building-the-beast
Of course motorweek has some awesome retro footage from the plant!
STM317 said:Opti said:I believe when the engines leaked the zr1/Zora will also be the 5.5 with turbos. Don't know if it will be FPC but using the rest of it would be a good way to spread developmental costs out.
Definitely seems like the same basic architecture:
Combine that with the extra space in the nose of the C8 for an electric motor, and the space in the tunnel for a battery, and things could get pretty interesting.
But then again, GM recently killed a brand new, $16 million engine platform after putting it into a total of ~800 vehicles, sooooo......who knows.
The blackwing engine is a whole different animal and a total disaster at that. Lots of outsourced design on that one and it shows. Cadillac has always had tumultous branding and direction, whereas Corvette is much more grounded and conservative.
The 2005 Ford GT quickly became a sought after collectors item. Do you think this car will do the same?
In reply to nderwater :
No because they made just over 4,000 Ford GT's with direct emotional hooks into the nostalgia of the original GT40 vs a hot rod version of a car they make more per month that GT's entire history, then they will usurpe it with another hotter mode in 12 months time
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
It worth noting GM did own lotus at the time.
I didnt know about service parts not being available for these. I looked extensively at picking one up a while back and although some things were more expensive than a normal C4, people were still able to get parts, and IIRC LPE was still servicing them and even building strokers for them until just recently.
This begs the question, can you still buy the original LT5? I want one.
It's not uncommon for OEM's to go outside for technical support, particularly with low volume products . Companies like AVL, Ricardo, Roush and Prodrive all provide engineering and sometimes manufacturing support.
In reply to APEowner :
Indeed, it is not a monolithic block of Manufacturer. There's a lot of subcontractin' going on. There aren't five thousand automotive related companies in SE Michigan for no reason.
And yeah, it's nothing new, either. Heck, Ford not only sent out Mustang shells to another company for chassis modification for the Boss 429, Kar Kraft stamped every car with their own internal serial number.
As far as LT5s are concerned, I understood that many/most internal engine gaskets were never available, so some people took the D move of protesting ZR1 autocrossers for "unauthorized internal engine modification". Which the owner of the car would not be able to prove without disassembling the engine, which they wouldn't want to do because no gaskets, so the protest would be upheld and they'd lose their trophy.
I also used to follow the DIY-EFI mailing list and GMECM lists (hitches onion on belt) and the ZR1 ignition module setup looked very interesting and swappable, except you could not buy one.
The Z06 is on display at SEMA. The jokes just write themselves...
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Ha! Thanks for posting that pic, is the very essence of the corvette's aspirational demographic...
I guess I hadn't seen pics of the back of the C8 Z06 until the SEMA photos. That rear wing is yuck.
In reply to Eric (Ottawa) :
That's kinda unfair. IMO the days of Corvettes as the steed of choice for the retired Viagra set has largely faded. I'd happily rock one and have neither a condo in Boca Raton, a much-younger girlfriend nor gold jewelry.
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
The people on those scooters probably can't even get into/out of the C8
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
Apologies, I'm not saying the Z06 isn't a great car but that at SEMA its the mobility scooters that belies the fact that many of them couldn't ingress/egress the car.
Also I'm not saying condos in sunny places and much-younger girl friends are bad things...
The pretty cool part of this new engine is that it's the most powerful normally aspirated v8 production ever produced. Previous any any na engine in a production car with this kind of power level was usually a v12.
as for the original lt5 engine yes it was designed at lotus but they were chosen as gm owned them at the time. The main lotus tech guy was tony rudd. For those who don't know who he was he is a legendary formula one designer most famous for his years at brm. He was one of the very last few people who designed both the engine and chassis in f1. And and another interesting thing considering the new zo6 engine has a flat crank lotus later took the lt5 engine increased it to 6 litres and gave it a flat crank then put it on it lotus gt1 race car in 1997.
In reply to NickD :
I have a friend (Milt Brown of Apollo Sports Cars) who's working on a subtle rebody to make it look more classic in a European way. Really looking forward to what he comes up with.
In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
The whole idea that the engine is race proven and dialed in is very appealing. Such a rare thing nowadays.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Eric (Ottawa) :
That's kinda unfair. IMO the days of Corvettes as the steed of choice for the retired Viagra set has largely faded. I'd happily rock one and have neither a condo in Boca Raton, a much-younger girlfriend nor gold jewelry.
It's still the main demographic, just not the only one anymore.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
The whole idea that the engine is race proven and dialed in is very appealing. Such a rare thing nowadays.
Is it actually race proven? I didn't think this was a competition engine.
Keith Tanner said:Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
The whole idea that the engine is race proven and dialed in is very appealing. Such a rare thing nowadays.
Is it actually race proven? I didn't think this was a competition engine.
Same thought, aren't the cars in that series limited to like, 200hp less than this engine makes?
Yeah, it's detuned, but still put through it's paces pretty rigorously.
Keith Tanner said:Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
The whole idea that the engine is race proven and dialed in is very appealing. Such a rare thing nowadays.
Is it actually race proven? I didn't think this was a competition engine.
They have been racing with the dohc flat crank v8 with the c8r. Just like the ls7 was derived from the c5r/c6r 7 lire race engine.
z31maniac said:Keith Tanner said:Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
The whole idea that the engine is race proven and dialed in is very appealing. Such a rare thing nowadays.
Is it actually race proven? I didn't think this was a competition engine.
Same thought, aren't the cars in that series limited to like, 200hp less than this engine makes?
Yes mostly via air restrictions remove them and they are far more powerful.
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