General Motors May Offer the C8 Corvette Z06’s LT6 V8 as a Crate Engine

Have you been dreaming of an LT6 engine under the hood of your classic vehicle?

Well, that dream might become a reality one day, just probably not in the immediate future.

That’s the word from GM’s Director for the Performance and Racing Propulsion Team, Russ O’Blenes, in an interview this week at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

GM Authority executive editor Alex Luft asked O’Blenes if Chevy was considering selling the 2023 Z06 engine as a crate motor.

Unfortunately, the demand for the new Z06 is already so high that GM is first making sure that those customers will have the first crack at the 670-horsepower, flat-plane crank engine that is the most powerful naturally aspirated motor ever offered from the factory, capable of zooming from 0-60 mph in 2.6 seconds.

O’Blenes told Luft that he’s sure offering the LT6 to the aftermarket is “something that we’ll continue to investigate.”

“We’ve done a lot of development with it,” he added, “as we worked really closely with the production team, so we’ve got a really good feel for how to do it.”

He did offer a glimmer of hope for enthusiasts, telling Luft that there wouldn’t necessarily have to be a surplus of the engines for a crate motor to be offered eventually.

“No, not necessarily a surplus,” he said. “But our customers are the most important, building the cars that the customers ordered is the most important. The great news is that we’ve been selling tons and tons of cars because people want our product. So the surplus part is not like with the LT5, we just consciously buy more when they’re doing their build out. We buy them to make sure that we can provide them.”

We wonder how many LT6 engines can be built logistically, however, since each one will be assembled by hand by master engine builders at the Performance Build Center inside the Bowling Green Assembly Plant.

Source:
gmauthority.com

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