The 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 is all-new and it’s also the most powerful production car ever built by General Motors and one of the very few production cars in the US with over 600 horsepower. Its official rating is a stunning 650 horsepower of supercharged power.
The engine under the hood of this highly anticipated vehicle is an LT4 supercharged 6.2L V-8 that has been SAE-certified at 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque at 3,600 rpm.
Digging a little deeper into those numbers reveals plenty of low-end torque with 457 lb-ft just off idle and 625 lb-ft at 2,800 rpm. For comparison, the V-12-powered Ferrari F12 Berlinetta has 28 percent less torque with a peak at 6,000 rpm, although it does have 12 percent more horsepower. The LT4 in the 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 maintains 90 percent of its peak torque in the range between 2,500 to 5,400 rpm.
The new LT4 engine is based on the same Gen 5 small block foundation as the Corvette Stingray’s LT1 6.2L naturally aspirated engine, but with features designed for its higher output and greater cylinder pressures. Those features include things like Rotocast A356T6 aluminum cylinder heads that are stronger and handle heat better than conventional aluminum heads, lightweight titanium intake valves, machined forged powder metal steel connecting rods for reduced reciprocating mass, and forged aluminum pistons with a unique, stronger structure for increased strength.
Your chance to get behind the wheel of the 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 will come when it goes on sale in the fourth quarter of this year.
Find out everything you ever wanted to know about the 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 in this video from the New York Auto Show…
Nicole Wakelin fell in love with cars as a teenager when she got to go for a ride in a Ferrari. It was red and it was fast and that was all that mattered. Game over. She considers things a bit more carefully now, but still has a weakness for fast, beautiful cars. Nicole also writes for NerdApproved and GeekMom.
