Quote:
Originally Posted by mena661
GM basically has a dedicated engine just for the Corvette as it is. What would be the problem of designing another one? Besides, I think a TT, DI V8 would be awesome and would get better fuel economy (if that's really an issue at the Corvette's numbers).
|
As I mentioned GM killed the engine that would have been the C7's V8. There is no development what so ever on any type of new V8 (non-pushrod) for the Corvette or Cadillac brand at this time. That means no DOHC, no VVT, and no Direct Injection. Whatever the C7 uses will more than likely be another variant of the current LS3/LS7 engines like the LS2 was a combination of LS1/LS6 technology.
That is of course unless fuel drops below $3/gallon again and GM stops bleeding $20/billion per quarter and decide to start the project back up again. However I don't see that happening any time soon.
GM however is pushing forward with development of high feature V6 engines as we've seen with the 3.6L V6 DOHC VVT DI in the CTS and Camaro. They've shown experimental twin-turbo versions of this V6 as well. I wouldn't be surprised if over the next 5 years we didn't see a new evolution of the current DI system, HCCI, start/stop technology, variable geometry turbos (Borg Warner says they'll have the mass producible version of gasoline VGTs by 2010, the 911 Turbo uses the only gasoline ones in existence now), and/or variable compression ratio. You combine some of those technologies (turbo, DI, and variable compression ratio) with E85 capability and you're talking about the ability to create massive amounts of HP.
Usage of an engine like this already in development for other cars to supplement the aging pushrod V8 as a low-end Corvette base engine would allow GM to bolster their CAFE values and to free up development on higher end V8 engines for the upper level versions.
