... I attended the 4th Annual Corvette & Employee Appreciation Day last Thursday. The show was held at the Corvette Engine Assembly Plant in St. Catherine's, Ontario. This is the ONLY plant that builds Corvette engines.
I was fortunate enough to get a spcial tour of the dyno test lab, and observed an LS6 engine running while we were there. The engine cycled thru a pre-programmed sequence and at WOT was pulling 472 bhp! Exhaust manifolds were cherry red! Talk about cool!!! I told the operator that I did the same work at Detroit Diesel Corporation, and he allowed me to enter the test cell!
After touring the dyno lab, we went back to the Car show, and re-entered the plant later for the actual engine assembly tour. Our group was at the piston loading station when the BIG BLACKOUT occurred. Luckily, the overhead skylights permitted enough light for us to exit the building.
OK, here's the Big Scoop: The plant manager addressed the crowd during the awards presentation and told us he could NOT give details about the C6 engine, but "think 4 and 5." My interpretation? 400+ hp for the base car, and 500+ hp for the next Z06!!! What do you think?
Another tour guide told us the LS1 engine will become the LS2, and the current LS6 will become the LS7....makes sense to me.
We also learned their will be new con rods in the next generation Vette engine. It will have a "floating piston pin" to minimize piston slap.
