EVs or not, the internal combustion engine continues to be improved

With all the ever-insistent promotion of what some breathlessly describe as tech information on boringly similar electric skateboard platforms cleverly disguised as “all-new” automobiles, it’s nice to know that a couple of really clever guys in the traditional industry are still designing and building better internal combustion engines. 

Perhaps most impressive to break cover is a completely new small-block Chevrolet V8 from lead GM engineers Jordan Lee and Dustin Gardner. They have dedicated the last several years of their lives to the creation of what may very well be the last totally new Corvette engine before the electron elves completely overwhelm GM’s Michigan Technical Center. 

It’s no small thing to describe what these two have created as a real work of art. Their new LT6 is composed of almost every special high-tech material and gorgeously finished performance component that could possibly be included in a real car guy’s dream of a naturally aspirated engine. 

While it’s not larger internally than a couple of the last 7-liter turbocharged variants that have powered some C7 and C8 Vette variants, this smaller, lighter, more efficient, high-revving, 5.5-liter delight easily matches the performance and efficiency of the world’s best racing engines. 

But it does it in such an elegantly internally engineered manner that it’s as perfect on the street as it will be in Corvette’s GT3 racers for the coming 24 Hours of Le Mans. With an alloy block capped with four-valve, twin-cam heads and titanium rods coupled to a flat-plane crank, it may externally resemble some of Europe’s most exotic wonders, but it’s the magic handling its lubrication that astonishes. 

Although 8 quarts are temporarily stored in an external dry-sump tank, only 1/16 of that volume actually circulates within to lubricate! Seven separate pumps keep the oil selectively moving and controlled so that usually expected frictional losses are held to an absolute minimum.

Almost unbelievable is the sound offered by the flat-plane crank. The LT6’s unique firing order offers a lusty, muted, high-end moan that will make any of these specially equipped C8s easily recognized wherever they’re heard.       

At the opposite end of the scale are the ultralight, three- and four-cylinder midget engines from my friend Dan Binks. His brilliant, self-designed creations are intended for the gritty wars on America’s hundreds of paved and dirt ovals. 

Dan’s racing background as crew chief with top teams like Roush Racing and Pratt Miller, running big-engine road racing Mustangs and Corvettes, belies his totally unexpected decision to even consider entering into one of racing’s most hallowed, highly specialized forms of competition–one that he’d never before experienced. Even more amazing is the fact that Dan had never before designed any sort of engine! 

What attracted him most to midget racing was the seemingly impossible challenge of building something entirely new and then racing it against hundreds of supposedly perfect, highly refined combinations of teams and cars with years of experience. Having the freedom to innovate and apply the knowledge he’d acquired over decades of watching and learning engine design trackside from some of GM’s top minds–like Lee and Gardner, as described earlier–seemed like an ideal racing environment.   

Although recently retired from the top ranks of professional road racing, Dan felt that much of his talent was going unused. He believed competition had become so over-regulated that there was little room left, or even allowed, to create superior racing equipment.

Thinking out of the box is what made Dan a legend in his favored realm of sport, but few had ever heard of him in the circle track ranks until one of his home-built V8s, secretly inserted in an “unknown” sprint car, began setting records. 

People soon noticed. Who is this guy? Dan then acquired some sponsorship and a couple of state-of-the-art chassis for his new engines, then entered the annually held Chili Bowl, the ne plus ultra of midget racing, in Tulsa. 

There are few rules in Chili Bowl racing–no weight limits and, best of all, no limitations on engine size! The unique characteristics of the changing track surface and how drivers and crew chiefs adjust to those conditions as the evening progresses is what determines who wins. 

Dan’s new racers impressed in Tulsa and soon gained attention. He has set himself a five-year goal to win the super-prestigious A Main on the Chili Bowl’s final night of competition. Those who watched his cars race this year aren’t betting against him.

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