No Mid-Engine For Chevrolet Corvette C7

[Rob]

No Mid-Engine For Chevrolet Corvette C7

By Mike Connor
Motor Trend Magazine

Good news: Nobody at GM is talking mid-engine C7 Corvette anymore. Bad news: The C7 is on hold and now unlikely to launch earlier than the 2014 model year. Mid-engine boosters, including Bob Lutz, believed it would be easier to achieve gas-saving cylinder shutoff with a mid-mounted LS3 V-8, as it's hard to deactivate cylinders in the current front engine/rear transaxle setup without adding a clutch to deactivate the driveshaft.

The question no one asked was, would the extra weight of a mid-engine layout, with its heavy rear cowl, offset the fuel-economy savings of cylinder shutoff? And it's tough to get the proper engine note with cylinder shutoff, anyway.

In the end, the higher cost of doing essentially the whole car from scratch took the idea off the drawing boards. Now the question is, will chief engineer Tom Wallace consider a 3.6-liter direct-injection V-6 for the base C7? With 2011-2015 CAFE looming, don't count it out...

 

[twiget]

I seriously hope that the author accidentally left out two words in the last sentence in that article. Those words being "turbo charged", as in a 3.6L turbo charged, direct injection motor...

Cant say I'm surprised to hear the C6 is going to be around for another 5 -6 years though.

Jason

 

[Hib Halverson]

The problem with AFM and the Y-car platform is that to control some of the unpleasing dynamics that occur at the transistion between 8-cyl and 4-cyl operation, to date, has required adding some high-mass damping devices to the car. GM has been studying AFM on the Corvette for a number of years and, to date, has decided it can't add AFM to Corvette's current architecture without putting a bunch of new mass into the car...something Tom Wallance and Sam Winegarden have deciced not to do.

The idea that AFM can't be used on a vehicle with a driveshaft doesn't make sense as GM has the system on full-sized trucks. That said, it might be that a full-size truck can "live" with the mass of a damping system because it's a much smaller percentage of the total vehicle weight.

As for the 3.6 DI V6, there is currently no turbocharged version of that engine. Right now it's a 303-hp NA engine. If it was to go to a turbo, 350-hp is conceivable but....

More likely to be in a redesigned C7 is a V8 of between 5.0 and 5.5-liters with AFM and direct injection.

Meeting the mid-next-decade CAFE will be tough but the issue that everyone at GM Powertrain is really afraid of is direct regulation of CO2 emissions over and above the new CAFE. If that happens, then we need to think about V6es in a rebadged Solstice as the Corvette of the "late-twenty-teens".

Bottom line, if you desire a 505-hp or a 632-hp Vette the next two years, now is the time to buy.

 

[gmc_kurt@yahoo.com]

its called displacement on demand.

denali,s, yukons, acadias, grand prixs and 7 other cars have the displacement on demand engine. my insiders still tell me the 2 engines will be the ls7 and ls9 that will be used in the 2014 vette. they said dod can be added to any engine, 8 or 6 cylinder without adding mass damping devices, and it wont add weight to the car. they told me by the 2014 yr they can have the ls9 at 800 hp and it will get 18 city-26 highway..after talking to our research department i am very confindent gm wont let the vette get watered down in loss of horsepower.ad

 

[killain]

denali,s, yukons, acadias, grand prixs and 7 other cars have the displacement on demand engine. my insiders still tell me the 2 engines will be the ls7 and ls9 that will be used in the 2014 vette. they said dod can be added to any engine, 8 or 6 cylinder without adding mass damping devices, and it wont add weight to the car. they told me by the 2014 yr they can have the ls9 at 800 hp and it will get 18 city-26 highway..after talking to our research department i am very confindent gm wont let the vette get watered down in loss of horsepower.ad

This scenario sounds a lot more reasonable to me. Changing the Covette down to a smaller platform is tantamount to reinventing the wheel as far as marketing the new car in my opinion. What would you have to compare it to? A Toyota MR-1 or a Mazda Miata? I don't think I could go looking at Corvettes and feel the same when looking at a Solstice type vehicle. The C-6 platform I think has a lot more life in it. The Corvette was always slightly larger than most sports cars and the first one weight in at 2886 pounds and in 1961 crossed the 3K pounds line and has always weight right around 3K pound since. I don't think people, Corvette people would really warm up to a 'mini' version of what they have come to know and love about the Corvette. I'm sure Sam Weinstein and the engineers in the powerplant division can work some really impressive things out of the preset line of LSX engines. at least I hope so !