Mid-Engine Corvette Coming With Turbocharged LT7 V8

by Michael Accardi

GM’s legal department keeps asking us to take the pictures of pictures down due to copyright infringement, thus confirming their legitimacy as CAD drawings of the upcoming C8 Corvette. 

GM’s Superfortress of intellectual property security has been breached once again by a rogue employee, with more pictures of pictures of CAD images emerging on the internet late yesterday and early this morning.

After Friday’s leak, in which we were allegedly shown the C8’s rear subframe and front suspension assembly, we now get a closer look at what would appear to be the car’s rear packaging, a new turbo system, and a glimpse of the car’s throttle body and fuel injection system. 

We obviously know very little at this early stage, but it would appear the C8 Corvette could be offered with at least one turbo-fed V8 which would allegedly wear the LT7 moniker. Little is shown beyond a bit of plumbing, with the turbos seemingly residing in each of the car’s rear corners, however, this is the first hint of what’s to come from GM’s sixth-generation LT V8 engine series.

It’s unclear what the sixth-gen LT family architecture could entail, but leading theories include skip-fire technology, electrically driven forced-induction, and mild-hybridization.

The second image shows us at least one of the C8’s engines will use a single throttle body setup, it’s unclear however if this picture of a picture is still showing us the LT7, or a more conventional naturally-aspirated push-rod small block. It would appear this potential engine will make use of both port and direct injection, a feature recently introduced on the Corvette ZR1’s new supercharged LT5 V8.

Save the images now because they’re not likely to be around for much longer. More information may become forthcoming, stay tuned.

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