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CORVETTE TODAY #106-Learn About The New Corvette C8 Z06 LT6 Engine From Jordan Lee & Dustin Gardner
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May 8, 2025
The new Corvette C8 Z06 that's coming out later this year is all the rage! And its revolutionary engine, the LT6, is putting the world on notice. Who better to explain this engine, in detail, than the two engineers who headed up this project! Jordan Lee is the Global Chief Engineer for Small Block Engines for General Motors and Dustin Gardner is the Assistant Global Chief Engineer for Small Block Engines. Both sit down with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to talk about this engine and how they built the most powerful naturally aspirated V8 engine EVER! It's one thing to read about this engine. It's another thing to listen to the guys who developed and built this engine talk about the engine...their pride and enthusiasm truly comes through on this CORVETTE TODAY episode. www.CorvetteTodayPodcast.com
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[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
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canadiancorvetforum.com welcoming corvette owners from around the world in this episode of corvette today we're
2:21
going to take a deep dive into the new lt6 engine for the c806 and who better
2:26
to talk about the engine than the guys who built and designed it it's my pleasure to welcome to the show jordan
2:32
lee the global chief engineer for small block engines at gm and dustin gardner
2:37
the assistant chief engineer for small block engines general motors guys welcome to corvette today thanks steve
2:43
we really appreciate your interest dustin and i are really excited to talk to you today about an engine that we're
2:48
really thrilled with it's an engine we've been working on intently for about seven years now and it is by far the
2:54
most complex engine we've ever designed and put into a car it makes incredible power to work it's really exciting and
2:59
thrilling to drive dust and i have driven them countless times over the years already it's just a thrill lt6 so
3:05
i'm really glad you're very interested and want to talk more about the lt6 and i think you see this one yeah same thing
3:11
there jordan and it's it's really exciting for us to be able to have these conversations now after working on it as
3:16
you said jordan for seven plus years there's a lot of pent-up pride and excitement that we have so it's fun to
3:22
be able to share the nitty-gritty and all the details now that everything is public absolutely guys well let's start out you engineers were inspired by the
3:29
gemini project from nasa in the 60s i love that correlation with the 54 rockets on the engine tell us a little
3:36
bit more about that yeah so it's it's kind of one of those stories that kind of evolved into itself right it wasn't a
3:42
plan to do it that way when we start engines especially new corvette engines we usually give them some kind of code
3:47
name so we can talk about them a little freer and if anything ever does get out people don't know what gemini is but
3:54
that name was picked because of that tie-in to nasa astronauts love of corvettes we kind of
4:00
nicknamed the engine our you know kind of our moonshot engine and then also with gemini the twins side of that
4:06
really resonates across this engine twin throttle bodies twin plenums with the flat plane crank layout it's really the
4:13
engine's architected as two four cylinders the way it's balanced twin valve springs there's a lot of nuances
4:18
to twins around it that name stuck with the engineers really well we still call
4:23
it a gemini small block you know in getting our production tools and everything online everybody wanted to
4:29
have that be a legacy for the engine something that would be there forever and that's when we started you know putting these little rockets around the
4:35
engine some big ones on the outside and cast features and most of them are actually inside of the engine anywhere
4:41
where we needed a directional arrow to help with assembly we used a rocket instead of an arrow so some of them are
4:46
functional in nature which is kind of fun as well but it'll be the test of time it'll be there when people are looking at these cars you know 20 30
4:53
years from now the gemini story will still be there because it's going to be on the engines like little easter eggs dustin and i we probably should explain
4:59
to you our team the small block team we're really uh into engines we're gearheads all the way all love corvette
5:05
and small block engines and engines in general and these things are our babies and we like to give them names and the
5:11
gemini which was something that we searched for for a while to come up with something was really fitting and knowing that the past lineage of astronauts with
5:17
corvette in the late 60s and 70s when they drove corvettes it just seemed like it was very fitting we came up with this
5:23
new lt6 engine it was like dusty mentioned with a room shot for us well guys growing up as a baby boomer in the
5:29
60s and 70s it's a great correlation because i loved the gemini and apollo projects so this really rings true with
5:36
me it's a great great correlation now let's talk about more about the engine the engine development just like the c7
5:42
was done with the race team and the engineers what are the similarities between the c8r and the z06
5:49
well we can tell you the similarities between the lt6r and the lt6 we probably not the
5:56
best people to ask about the car itself so we'll have to defer that but steve are you more interested in the engine
6:01
details absolutely there it is go ahead so dustin if you know this a little better than i do run down to the actual
6:07
hardware that is the same yeah so the development of the lt6 and lt6 are were
6:12
kind of done in parallel we jumped off at a similar point we call it our beta phase it's kind of a middle prototype
6:19
stage of the engine development and at that point in time is where the two diverged but they started from the same
6:26
place and then they only diverged for reasons specific either to a production car or to the race car in their rule set
6:33
so if you look at the engine at a high level the block structure the cylinder head layout the valve train
6:40
the fuel system the exhaust are very similar and some of those parts are
6:45
actually common down to the part number between the two where the race engine is really
6:50
different from the production engine in the one group that i talked about is just in the vehicle layout their center
6:56
line of cranks it's lower in their car which drove some design changes to the bottom of the engine that were done more
7:03
for packaging reasons than functional reasons they had to relocate their oil cooler because ours is underneath the
7:08
engine they had to move it up over to the side of the engine and then other things like that they work under a different set of rules than we do in the
7:16
current division they race in right they're not allowed to have cam phasers on their engine so the things like that are removed and optimized around a non
7:23
ham phased engine the other thing is they have to breed through an inlet restriction i'll get the number wrong if
7:28
i quote it but it's on the order of 40 45 millimeters diameter that they have to breathe through on their abduction
7:34
side so their intake system is definitely tailored to maximize what they can do there then the reality is
7:40
based on that inlet restriction that they run they don't run as high of an engine speed or make as much power as we
7:46
do but the funny thing those guys continue to remind me if we took the restrictor off they could make more power
7:51
but yeah it's the engines are very similar as i said we just diverged because production engines have a different goal than the race team does
7:58
on their design throughout development there's a lot of instances where they were doing their development while we were doing ours obviously but the parts
8:04
that are common we helped each other out a few times they had a big event where they needed to get another engine
8:09
together and they were short of fuel system so we lent them one of our fuel systems because they're plug and play compatible between the two engines and
8:15
things like that and all through development we sit in the same building where they run these engines if they
8:21
have a durability test that they've torn down or they get an engine back from a race because they were racing before we
8:26
were in production we would go visit their tear downs and anything we learned on our side or on their side was cross
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shared real time all throughout development so the reality is is we got a lot of road time because of the race
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car early on a lot of the shared systems between the two engines that's great guys let's delve into horsepower and
8:44
torque this is the highest horsepower naturally aspirated v8 engine ever built by anyone the engine really wakes up
8:51
also i know i've heard it at 000 rpm plus it's the highest revving engine ever built by general motors at 8 600
8:58
rpms give us a little bit more of background about that some of the real basic specs well i'll start and i'll
9:05
talk a little bit philosophically first all of the engines we've used in corvette for a long time now have been
9:11
great high-powered engines that are suitable for the purpose they're intended for front engine cars are very
9:17
limited in the size in the engine compartment for an engine and that's one of the reasons why small block has been
9:23
such a great powerhouse because it's power dense and it's important that the driver be able to see over the hood and
9:28
if we have too big of an engine it detracts from the driver's usability of the car it raises the center of gravity
9:34
it's just a bad thing well along comes the mid-engine c8 and the engine is not behind the driver and the engine
9:39
compartment's quite a bit larger so it gave us as engine engineers a lot more free ability to design an engine that
9:46
maximize and optimize power as well as some of the operating characteristics including the things that the driver
9:52
senses like what he hears what he feels and of course the sound and all the senses that are tantalized when you
9:58
drive a high performance engine so that drove us to a different architecture the double over cam which i know is one of
10:04
your questions as well as the rev range um that getting engine spin 8600 is
10:10
important for a few things not only how it analyzes the driver sensations but also to make as much power as we do for
10:15
a naturally aspirated engine so there were a lot of key characteristics that we wanted this v06 to exhibit and mainly
10:22
be just a thrill and exhilarating to drive it kind of drove the architecture into what it is the double overcam flat
10:27
plane crank and 8600 rpm potential that's in that maybe add some tidbits there from your perspective yeah and
10:34
kind of along those same lines jordan so the lt6 i don't want to say this we knew what it needed to be and then what was
10:41
the recipe to get there right so we're replacing a lt4 z06 from the previous
10:46
generation that was making 650 horsepower and knowing that we wanted to get back to the naturally aspirated
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roots of the z06 you know the true pure track oriented sort of car and the
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engine that goes with that the best is a naturally aspirated v8 but we didn't want to take a step backwards in
11:03
horsepower so which pushed us to do exactly what you said steve we had to break the records for the highest output
11:09
naturally aspirated v8 the production car ever in order to do that and then it was the vehicle packaging that jordan
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mentioned that enabled a configuration to get us there that being what the lt6 is today now the lt6 is a two-piece
11:23
engine block as well is this a new concept guys it's not really a new concept and
11:29
actually it's not even new to gm we did a lower crankcase engine long ago remember the north star v8 that was an
11:34
aluminum block it had an upper and lower we tend to optimize the design based on the needs and for this particular engine
11:40
we wanted to make sure we had a very robust loop system and a dry sump loop system at that and by separating all the
11:47
bays and scavenging each bay individually with its own scavenge pump it gave the car tremendous capability on
11:53
the track if the loop system falters the engine is going to fail and on race track conditions with all the
11:58
high g loading it puts a lot of stress on the loop system we were able to do a fine job with the previous engines with
12:04
the push rod engines that didn't have seal base but for this particular engine the lt6 we went above and beyond and
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sealed the bays and that drove a lower crankcase construction it was necessary very nice also guys talk about how the
12:17
parts were made because i know it's done with precision sand cast isn't that correct yeah correct the blocks are and
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the lcc are precision sand cast components out of the 319 aluminum alloy
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the other interesting thing is the block is the enabler for the loop system as jordan described and integrated in the
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block there's all these scavenge passages and we call them cores when you kind of build the core box before the
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aluminum is poured into it and given the complexity of it is is the upper block has 22 separate core pieces and the lcc
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has 25. so you almost have 47 different precision sand cast pieces that get
12:55
assembled together to pour one cylinder block very cool also guys let's talk about the differences the basic
13:01
differences between the lt6 z06 engine and the lt2 engine in the c8 stingray
13:07
well both dust and i will add in here they're completely different they are unique animals all unto themselves but
13:14
they do share a common dna factor the boar centers that's the spacing between cylinder bores it's 4.4 inches which has
13:21
become kind of an interesting folklore historic dna of a small block engine so
13:27
the lt6 carries that forward but there are no parts that are similar they're very unique and very different
13:33
and they're unique and different because the application and the requirements needed for power and torque and the
13:39
other thing that we mentioned earlier dustin maybe you can add some more detail there also is there any common parts at all there's a couple common
13:47
parts but i wouldn't say they're common to make the engines common right i think the crank seals are common and then the
13:54
throttle body is a common throttle body however we have two of them versus one the second jordan's comments right we
14:00
weren't designing the lt6 to be modular in any way with the current lt2 the
14:06
mission of the z06 lt6 engine was so different that it drove a complete
14:12
departure from what we would do you know in the footprint of an lt2 gen 5 small block you know it's interesting when you
14:18
look at the differences between the gen 4 and the gen 5 so ls3 to lt1 there
14:25
weren't any common parts either and i think if i remember correctly the starter bolts the bolts that held the
14:30
starter in place and the piston ring circlips were the only common parts between the engines wow architecturally
14:36
they're very similar both push rod designs every time we do a new generation it generates typically all
14:42
new parts the lt6 architecturally is different so visually it's very easy to see wow that's a very different engine
14:49
for sure guys let's take our first break when we come back in segment number two we're going to talk more about the z06
14:55
lt6 engine i've got jordan lee the global chief engineer for small block engines at gm and also dustin gardner
15:02
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everything corvette brought to you by mid-america motorworks car show season is here get your corvette ready by
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shopping over 60 000 corvette specific parts and accessories at mamotoworks.com i'm your host steve
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garrett with me today are jordan lee the global chief engineer of small block engines general motors and dustin
17:20
gardner the assistant chief engineer for small block engines in this second segment we're going to still take our
17:25
deep dive into the z06 engine for the lt6 guys with the flat plane crank
17:31
engine how does that affect the dry sump well i don't think it does actually steve the
17:37
dry sump would work equally as well if it was a cross-plane crank or a flat plane crank the mysteries behind the
17:43
flat plane what's been talked about a lot really has to do with volumetric efficiency and making sure that the
17:49
engine breathes air as well as possible an engine is effectively an air pump and the better it pumps air the more power
17:55
it's going to make so flat plane not only it gives you that unique audible characteristic which is different
18:01
sounding to the ear more ferrari-like even though lt6 is uniquely corvette
18:06
with its own deep bass flat plane crank type of a sound the flat plane allows us
18:12
to do better job of tuning the intake and the exhaust so that we fill the cylinders more efficiently at higher rpm
18:18
to make more power that's the primary reason why it was chosen it didn't have anything to do with the dry sump also guys obviously one of the biggest
18:24
differences is this flat plane crank talk about the differences between the flat plane crankshaft and a normal
18:30
crankshaft along with its benefits so steve the big difference there is obviously it's flat plane versus cross
18:36
plane when you say conventional which is what we're used to in corvettes or like the lte2 is in the base stingray so when
18:41
you shift the pins from being at every 90 degrees to just in two planes at 180
18:47
degrees apart you need much less counter weighting so what that enables is a lighter crankshaft the lt-6s crankshaft
18:54
is about 33 percent lighter than an lt2's so what that then enables you is
19:00
to get some more of the character we're looking for out of this engine so when you make the parts that are rotating the
19:05
fastest that you need to accelerate the fastest lighter the engine wants to respond much quicker in the rev range
19:12
and on a neutral rev or even a first gear run up on this engine you can feel the lightness that's in the crank train
19:18
on this engine from the flat plane crank v8 it wants to accelerate in speed with a ferociousness that i have not
19:24
experienced before which is really part of the character and the excitement around the engine then as jordan said
19:30
the other side of the crank is it doesn't enable the speed what it enables is the balancing of the airflow in the
19:36
engine which is really where the heart of this is and why it makes the power it does yeah so let's talk a little bit
19:41
about what dustin mentioned you know there's been a lot of talk about cross plane and flat plane and advantages and
19:46
disadvantages it can become very cloudy because if you did a purpose-built cross-plane crank with the same bore
19:53
stroke rotating ciprocating mass the crank shafts may be more similar in weight than you would think a lot of the
20:00
rev-happy nature of this particular engine is the result of not only the low reciprocating and rotating masses but
20:07
the short stroke of the crankshaft as well some of the bigger displacement engines small block lt1 lt4 lt2 with a
20:14
92 millimeter stroke is a significantly longer stroke than what we have in 80
20:19
millimeters for the lt6 short stroke engines rev very quickly and it's a unique characteristic and the flat plane
20:26
crank just tends to complement that but for your listeners the main benefit by
20:31
far is the improvement in volumetric efficiency that a flat plane crank gives you and that's why we chose it that makes sense
20:38
that's great guys talk about the pistons in the lt6 engine versus previous corvette engines because i know there's
20:44
a lot of difference in there i'll talk a little bit about the visual aspect and it doesn't talk about more the engineering the piston and the rods
20:51
they're simply beautiful i think they ought to be delivered to the engine build line and velvet line boxes
20:56
they're so pretty i have one on my desk now and i have some connecting rods and they're just beautiful to look at and to
21:03
hold the rod's titanium it has the most elegant machined cap bolts for the rod
21:09
cap the piston made by cp gorilla the rods by tangle for those in the know that those suppliers they're one of the
21:15
same the ones the parent company panko they make engine components for formula one engines and a lot of other exotics
21:21
so they're really great at their craft and the hardware jewel like so that's maybe you can talk about some of the
21:27
design decisions yes the start with the rod obviously everything in this engine that's moving
21:33
is about weight as light as possible and the connecting rod is definitely a big part of that being one of the parts in
21:38
the engine that's moving the fastest obviously something you have to balance with a flat plane engine of this size is
21:45
the shaking forces from the fact that your firing order is balanced bang the bag the pistons are really where that
21:51
energy is coming from in the reciprocating part of the engine so getting the rods lighter it goes a long
21:58
way in managing the vibrations which is why we did go as light as we did with these titanium rods and in fact they're
22:04
even 20 lighter than the previous tie rod we did in the ls7 so we're lighter than our
22:11
older tie rods not to mention we're over 40 lighter than if you compare it back to like an lt4 rod and second jordan's
22:17
comments that they look like jewelry when you look at the raw part and kind of the same thing with the piston right
22:23
it's a very high strength forged piston that we start with it's got a very low skirt on it once again to enable
22:30
low-mass high-speed operation that this engine enables that's so cool that is
22:36
really nice also you brought back the dual overhead cam talk a little bit about that and the push rods all right
22:41
so i'll start with the easy part there are no push rods in the lt6 pushrod architecture is the different small
22:47
blocks that we have in the lt2 for example but some of the things i mentioned earlier a lot of it has to do
22:52
with the amount of space and the size requirements for the engine and in the c7 the front engine car we wanted to
23:00
make sure that the engine was as low in profile as possible for driver visibility and also to keep the engine
23:06
low to the ground for low center or gravity and push rods are great for that it gives you an engine architecture that
23:12
is extremely compact and small in dimensions but makes a ton of power and a ton of torque but two valves do have
23:19
its limitations ideally you want to get as much air in the cylinder as possible to make power and four valves is always
23:24
going to be better than two valves you're just going to get more air flow area across the valves and be able to
23:29
make more power as a result than naturally aspirated engines and that led the way to the double overhead cam which
23:35
is a much more effective design for four of you never do a four-valve push rod especially for a high speed engine just
23:41
doesn't work well so dustin maybe if you wouldn't mind talking about what drove the design choices in the lt6 not only
23:47
double over cam but also the components that we use yeah so the second jordan's comments there it's at the end of the day i'll say this again and again with
23:53
this engine it's all about breathing airflow the volumetric efficiency of getting air into the engine and the
23:59
valve train is a big part of that so it needs to support both the high airflow which we get from the four valve
24:05
configuration versus a two it also needs to enable the high engine speed the valve train on this engine is very
24:11
unique and very race car inspired we have dual valve springs per valve an
24:16
inner and outer to enable the high engine speed also it's a direct acting mechanical valve train with a mechanical
24:21
finger follower so there's no hydraulic components to the valve train so it's a very rigid
24:28
lightweight valve train which goes back to all the other kind of points we've commented on of light and responsive
24:35
like ice cream they're a lot of different flavors and that moon flavor is better than another the small block
24:40
gen fives are remarkable engines in their own right and accomplish their tasks better than no other we think
24:46
and likewise the small block gemini is unique and it accomplishes its tasks also equally as well it's just a
24:52
different task guys did this new engine create any issues with oil or oil coolers well in two words heck yeah
25:01
you make a lot of power you make a lot of heat and it's tough to cool it so dustin i know you worked these details
25:07
excruciatingly well over the last two years so maybe get some tidbits yeah and i wouldn't say it created issues but it
25:14
definitely was a design challenge from the beginning we knew this engine's capability both from power and speed and
25:20
the heat rejection requirements were going to be significant the other thing to support an engine of this nature is
25:26
you really want to make sure your oil is consistently cool even on the hottest track days so it was done in unison with
25:33
the vehicle team to enable that to happen as you guys have seen they added additional radiators for the z06 and
25:39
that's compared to the base stingray right and on this engine we have a dedicated secondary radiator just for
25:46
the engine oil so when the coolant comes back from the front of the car after getting cooled through the main vehicle
25:52
radiators in the front a portion of that coolant is diverted to another step down radiator which cools the coolant even
25:59
more then all of that coolant is then directly dedicated to the engine oil cooler in its own right is just massive
26:06
this is the biggest plated heat exchanger oil cooler we've ever done on an engine so everything from the
26:11
beginning was basically to over capacitize the oil cooling side of the circuit so we would always have cool oil
26:18
on the track and it would never be a concern worth mentioning that we work really
26:23
closely with the vehicle folks they're an extended team of us we're an extended team of them the z06 has got to be a track capable monster so it ought to be
26:30
able to run around the track making 670 horsepower and even the hottest climb as well as we possibly can make it make
26:35
that happen and a big part of that is keeping the engine cool the oil cool and the cool and cool right this on the oil
26:41
cooler also with the radiator there's a lot of work that went on to make sure that the engine temperature stayed in check even into the hottest racing
26:48
conditions in hot ambient conditions also we're using a new oil for this engine too guys what are we using for
26:54
this yeah this is a new dexos r rated oil we actually work with exxon mobil to
26:59
develop for this application the 5w50 wow excellent great oils great products
27:04
we use the 040 esp and our other engines really good properties it's worked out really well for us very cool also the
27:11
intake manifold on the lt6 is a work of art it's absolutely incredible give us
27:16
an overview of that and the dual throttle bodies yeah so back to the broken record you heard me sing again
27:22
it's this engine is all about breathing right and the intake manifold is the enabler for that it's divided up as
27:29
you've seen into two plenums for each side of the engine each side has its own 87 millimeter throttle body so twice as
27:36
much throttle area as we would have on an lt2 and then within each of the plenums on each side there are
27:43
individual trumpets you can call them velocity stacks if you know we're going to go way back in the day right but
27:48
that's exactly how they work and it's all about tuning the air at high speed and then joining the two intake
27:55
manifolds we have three other tuning valves they call them communicator valves
28:00
once again goes back to that tuning so when you tune something and jordan's probably going to dive into that with the helmholtz it's a narrow frequency
28:07
it's which a system will tune at so that meaning being a narrow rpm band but what the tuning valves in the middle allows
28:14
us to do is to change the volume and the way the pressure waves act on each other in the intake as a function of engine
28:20
speed and effectively we can broaden out the range at which the intake manifold
28:25
wants to tune up and achieve volumetric efficiencies greater than one so if you think about that at speed
28:32
you're getting more air into the cylinder than is currently at atmospheric pressure kind of want to
28:38
call it boost even though it's not but it's just through the tuning of that is where all the magic is the engine is 5.5
28:44
liters so in an ideal sense each cycle it'll ingest five and a half liters of air with this very creative intake
28:50
manifold and tuning and attention to detail we've achieved 110 volumetric efficiency which means the
28:56
engine actually ingests six liters of air for every cycle instead of just five five so effectively we're mildly super
29:02
charging a bit with the intake tuning that's why the intake is so remarkable in the way it does what it does it
29:08
really is i've seen the cutaway version at the peterson automotive museum and the trumpets the velocity stacks plus
29:15
the two plenums are there it was so cool it was just great to see i'm not an engineering type but i love all the
29:20
technicality and the details of it well guys let's take our final break and in segment number three we'll finish up on
29:26
the z06 engine the lt6 i've got jordan lee the global chief engineer of small
29:31
block engines and dustin gardner the assistant chief engineer for small block engines with general motors here on
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american hydrocarbon and now back to corvette today with your
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host and my husband steve garrett hey thanks once again for listening to
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corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you by mid-america motorworks car show
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season is here get your corvette ready by shopping over 60 000 corvette specific parts and accessories at
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mamotoworks.com i'm your host steve garrett with me today this is a great podcast guys i've
33:07
got jordan lee the global chief engineer for small block engines general motors and dustin gardner the assistant chief
33:14
engineer for small block engines at gm with me today in this third and final segment we're going to talk more about a
33:20
deep dive on the lt6 z06 engine for the c8 guys the engineering team had a creative
33:26
issue with the engine sound and i know this engine sounds very ferrari-like i know that you weren't happy with the way
33:33
that the c8 lt2 engine sounded how did you get around that engine conundrum as
33:39
we mentioned earlier one of the things i think is really unique about corvette is the way it tantalizes all your senses so
33:45
for us working with taj and his team what you see what you feel what you hear is so important to the driver experience
33:52
the mid engine oddly enough it makes it more difficult to get some of the glorious engine noises inside the
33:57
passenger compartment where the c7 didn't have that problem at all with the engine in front of you but with the engine behind you and the c8 with the
34:04
lt2 was a little subdued so there was quite a bit of work by the vehicle nvh engineers to try and bring some of that glorious sound back inside
34:10
we did not want to miss the opportunity to do the same thing with the lt6 because the engine makes its own glorious sounds flat plane cranks do
34:18
have a unique characteristic we've finally referred to it as a picket fence type of sound where it's a very staccato but there was
34:25
a lot of work done on changing the frequencies and the tone uh bringing out some more bass tones more pleasing tones
34:32
to make it a hair-raising thrilling experience to the driver when he rips off those 8 600 rpm shifts a really
34:38
talented team of engineers mike bailey roger barlow nvh engineers on taj's team
34:44
came up with some unique solutions to try and get more of the exhaust sound inside the passenger compartment and i
34:50
think they talked quite a bit about the quad kit center exhaust in our technical immersion deep dive that we had a few
34:56
weeks ago but suffice to say there was an enormous amount of engineering work to get the right sound inside the
35:02
passenger compartment so it sounded great when you drove it guys is there a lot of restriction with the lt6 i know
35:08
that the engine sound obviously inside and outside the car is really important and i know they had to get creative
35:14
because the tailpipes and the bezels are not connected to the engine itself yeah
35:19
i'm going to probably defer a little bit to dustin but suffice to say that bailey and barlow they came up with this unique
35:25
parabolic reflector that does not attached directly to the exhaust tip itself
35:30
but it's pretty unique in the way it reflects exhaust noise back into the car
35:35
so dustin i don't know if you know any more details on how that works i guess from a high level two things you're touching on there one is the restriction
35:41
level the touch on that first right this has the continuously variable valves in the exhaust so when you're looking for
35:49
peak performance and peak power the restriction of the exhaust system is very low that on the decoupled exhaust
35:56
tips that i think have been referred to as a reverse megaphone in some of the other places we've had it so by having
36:02
that decoupled from where the exhaust and the noise source is works just like that those sound waves bounce off the
36:09
parabolic on the id of those tips to throw that sound back forward as jordan
36:15
talked at length about so much of this corvette in general but what we wanted with the lt6 was that connection to the
36:21
machine the specialness of the engine and getting that auditory sound to the
36:27
driver it just adds to the emotional experience that this car is it really does it sounds fantastic when i heard
36:33
the car there at the peterson automotive museum it sounded phenomenal guys let's
36:39
talk again about the benefits of the flat plane crank because i know we talked about the oil the engine keeps
36:45
cool with the secondary cooler for the engine oil talk about the basic benefits of this flat plane crank engine it's
36:51
kind of a summary of what we've been touching on right so what the flat plane at the end of the day really gives us is
36:57
the balance breathing it gets your firing orders you go from one bank to the other bank in a very even manner
37:02
versus where you have a cross plane crank like you do on an lt2 right you'll have two firing events on one side of
37:08
the engine at periods in the firing order that even firing order allows all the breathing all the tuning we talked
37:15
about with the intake manifold an intake like this with volumetric deficiencies the hyzars would not work within a
37:21
cross-plane configuration just due to that lack of balance and that helps you on the exhaust as well as the intake
37:28
with the way the headers are designed and our valve timing once again to be able to scavenge then on the exhaust
37:33
side of the thing so at the end of the day it's about breathing breathing breathing to enable a naturally aspirated engine to make the power that
37:39
we do and i was also really excited to see that the build your own engine program is coming back with the c806 can
37:46
you talk more about the specifics of this restarted program dustin's very close to the engine plan he's gonna he
37:51
can talk a bit about it but the previous generation corvette engines we've had build their own programs and at our
37:57
immersion day tags did mention that we're going to bring that back i don't think the details have been decided yet and when it's going to happen i know
38:03
there's going to be work making that happen dustin perhaps you could talk a little bit about the experience itself for those who aren't familiar with it
38:10
well we haven't divulged everything around it it is coming back and it will be i guess similar to what it has been
38:16
in the past where you'll have a dedicated builder to work with you throughout the day to build your engine
38:22
and it to me it's always neat being there where we make the engines right it's right there in bowling green the
38:27
performance build center the pbc as we call it as windows so while you're there working on an engine you can look out
38:33
the window and there's corvettes going down the assembly lines it makes it for a very special experience and special
38:39
place and i know there's going to be more details and timing and stuff like that coming out at a later date around build your own when we're gonna be ready
38:45
to turn that on i thought that was so fantastic but boy i'll tell you what i don't want to screw up my engine when i
38:51
go to build it especially on a z06 yeah the good thing is is the engine builders that we have down there they're
38:57
so skilled and meticulous they won't let you make a mistake even though you're doing it you'll be well supervised
39:04
you get the same warranty regardless that's good that's good to know that's fantastic guys i was also amazed to find
39:10
out that the secret of the z06 torque comes from a 200 year old german physicist talk about the heimholt's
39:17
resonance and how it was used with the lt6 oh okay so we're back to helmholtz
39:22
resonance okay so the easiest way to describe this almost resonance effect is if you can imagine a spring mass system
39:29
i don't want to get too technical here but so you got a little bit of a mass on a spring and it's attached to another mass in the spring and the masses are
39:36
vibrating on these springs back and forth air is just like that in a manifold air is elastic and you can
39:42
envision as the pistons going down the cylinder ingesting air you're moving air into the cylinder the valves close now
39:49
the air bounces back and forth well as the air is bouncing back and forth in the manifold we can harness the
39:55
tuning of it by changing the volumes and the diameters of the runners and the volumes of the plenum to make sure that
40:01
it's bouncing at the right time at the right engine speed to actually push more air in the cylinder than normally would
40:07
fit in that cylinder kind of like what we talked about earlier 5.5 liters of displacement but we can get up to six
40:14
liters worth of air in it by harnessing the resonances that occur within the intake manifold of the air bouncing
40:19
around and that's effectively what helmholtz resonance is it's actually the resins of the air within the manifold
40:25
well i think you covered it pretty well jordan it summarizes the tuning aspect of the engine and it's once again i'll
40:30
say it again and again it's all about breathing and the efficiency at which we get air into the engine this is really
40:35
the enabler for the performance numbers that we have that's great well guys thank you so much for taking time to be
40:41
on corvette today it's jordan lee the global chief engineer of small block engines general motors along with dustin
40:47
gardner the assistant chief engineer for small block engines guys thanks again for everything our pleasure it's really
40:53
a fun day talking to you i appreciate your interest and i hope you got some value out of it yeah thanks again steve
40:58
this was fun and as i said in the beginning it's exciting for us to finally be able to openly talk about something we've poured so much passion
41:05
and time into so this is an exciting time for us as well so thank you for the opportunity thanks for listening to
41:10
corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the corvette today podcast and also thanks to our
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41:54
with steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on corvette
42:00
today you can email him at stevegarrettdj gmail.com
42:05
that's stevegarrettdj gmail.com garrett has two r's and two t's or
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thanks again for listening to corvette today [Music]
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