In a bid to offer a more refined, efficient, and nimble car that will be competitive not only in North America, but in Europe as well as in other parts of the world, Ford has said it will offer a turbocharged four-cylinder engine in the next-generation 2015 Mustang. This has led to speculation that General Motors will follow suit and offer a four-banger in the next-gen 2015 (or 2016) Camaro.
According to AutoGuide, a four cylinder engine option will not find its way under the hood of the next Camaro, at least not if Camaro chief engineer Al Oppenheiser has anything to do with it.
“We’re not following Ford”, Oppenheiser told AG during the 2013 SEMA show. “As long as they’ll pay me to be the chief engineer, I’m going to fight for every horsepower I can and every cylinder I can,” he said.
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars will jump from an average of 27.5 MPG, where it has been since 1990, to 37.8 MPG by 2016. This mandated increase is forcing automakers to downsize engines, some of which have been removing two cylinders while adding forced induction such as turbo-charging. As such, some V8s are being replaced with turbo-charged six-cylinders, and naturally-aspirated six-cylinders have been eschewed in favor of boosted fours.
For its part, General Motors is no longer offering a six-cylinder engine in the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu or Buick Regal, opting to solely offer powerful turbo-charged four-bangers. But The General has also been able to avoid downsizing its engines in its all-new full-size pickup trucks such as the 2014 Silverado and 2014 Sierra. Instead of downsizing, GM elected to engineer an all-new eight-cylinder engine line called EcoTec3 with a host of modern technologies such as direct injection, variable valve timing, and active fuel management, also known as cylinder deactivation. By contrast, cross-town rival Ford has fully embraced the downsizing trend, and is experiencing a great degree of success with its EcoBoost four- and six-cylinder powerplants.
Oppenheiser addressed the possible future demise of V8 engines, saying that, “In the future, something I don’t think the public realizes yet, there may be a day when nobody, Ford, Chrysler or GM has a V8, or if they do it would be a very highly-priced V8 because you’ve got to add your whole stable of cars and come up with a fuel economy number”.
He also added that downsizing the car or the engine too much will stray too far from what the Camaro is all about, and make people question whether the car should continue on.
“We’ve established what the Camaro is. And if the Camaro ceases to become a Camaro, you’ve got to consider, do you take Camaro out in the future.”
It’s somewhat reassuring to hear that GM would rather kill the Camaro off altogether than turn it into an economy car. However, we’re not against seeing GM’s new and highly-potent LF3 V6 under its hood, or even a boosted four-cylinder of higher displacement, such as a turbocharged 2.5 liter I4.
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I guess this leaves even more room and reason for a sub-Camaro RWD car
Tru 140S? With a 1.6L Turbo (VVT, SIDI, iVVL, and VTM) that has 230HP/245-260FT-LBS paired to a 7-Speed DCT. .
Camaro must always have a V8. I would love to see the TT 3.6 in the next camaro as an option though. But a turbo four in a camaro just wouldn't be right.
A turbo 4 in a Camaro would be better than the NA 4's the the 3rd gens came with.
Given that the 2.0 liter turbo-charged LTG can be tuned to produce more power and torque than the 3.6 liter LFX while making said power over a broad range, what would be the reason for not using the engine in the Camaro?
I sort of agree with Grawdaddy. I think a turbo four would be better than no four at all, just for gas mileages' sake.
I think it's a bold move that GM decided not to have a boosted 4 cyl.. But then I do wish that they would put more powerful version on their compact and subcompact cars..... I have seen a few videos of the VXR/OPC trounces the Focus ST so why not bring it here?
A boat anchor would be better than the 3rd gen old Iron Duke. I drove those cars and they were horrid.
Well as I said we all need to listen to Al as he speak and can point us in the right direction often and generally is the best source of info out of GM for new product.
He has backed up what I have said for a long time. The V8 will be more and more limited and will only get more and more expensive. This is why I believe the Colorado is not going to get a V8 and may replace the 1/2 full size as they move the full size to a light 3/4 ton to beat the CAFE but it will make it more expensive.
I think this may also be a sign of w smaller RWD car to fill the 4 cylinder need. This will give GM just what they need in both segments with out trying to make one car fill both needs. It could even fall to Buick too.
We have yet to see all the LT versions of the V8 yet so there is more to come. Also I expect the 3.6 will remain NA but more power will be found with this engine.
There is a snow balls chance in hell of a 2.5 Turbo unless you like head gasket issues. GM made the turbo engines 2.0 for a reason and that is block strength and head strength. You may see more boost as GM can add more very easily if they make the a Turbo Premium Required VS. Recommended rating. I see 23 PSI daily with the GM tune and there is still more room on the engine. GM said they can push the LNF to 400 HP before you have to change the pistons or rods. After that 500 HP is easy with the stock parts.
Al is completely right. Just wait till fords turbo four cylinder comes out and they start marketing the mustang as an econo box with rwd. See how that turns out for them. Keeping a V6 as the lowest available engine choice is a great plan because it leaves the turbo 4 for the awesome Code 130 car. Ford will have a very hard time marketing the stang when Chevy offers a more powerful base Camaro and a more fuel efficient, agile top end Code. That lineup would be unstoppable, two really great cars.
The base engine in the Mustang will still be the v6. The turbo 4 will be a premium option and will have a bigger torque curve, be lighter, and get better mileage than the v6. The ecoboost Mustang is going to be 3-400 pounds lighter than the v6 Camaro, which will more than compensate for the slightly fewer horsepower it'll have. Perhaps instead of fighting for displacement and cylinders Al should be fighting to make the Camaro less of a bloated pig. There's no reason that the Camaro should weigh as much a 5 series.
Personally, I can't wait to put a turbo 4 Mustang in my garage next to my El Camino. The Camaro isn't even on my radar.
You seem to forget the next gen Camaro will be based off the ATS architecture. In caddy guise it's 32-3500lbs. The Camaro won't have the luxury extras nor the extra doors. It will be MUCH lighter than the current by far. With the current gas mileage the V6 gets even in the current Camaro, a V6 in the next gen will easily meet fuel economy goals.
Heritage, and perception. As much as we may pretend it doesn't matter. In this segment it can easily kill the appeal of the car.
a high specific out put FI 2.5 is a possibly, but it will be expensive. FI unlike N/A has unique issues that arrise with greater displacement. instead of just NVH problems you also run into the extra mass of bigger and heavier connecting rods, cranks, wristpins, and headgaskets plus more exotic materials to deal with the dual demands of increased compression from higher boost as well as preserving a built in reserve for "overboost" situations, or aftermarket modifications.
the sweet spot for highly boosted 4 cyclinders tend to peak right at 2.0L. Then 2.5-3.0L for 6s and smaller 8s. It doesn't really matter with anything larger because the boost is much lower and not as critical to the engines overall HP output on say 3.5l or bigger motors.
You just have to understand they could but it would have to be a new block and head that would be larger and heavier.
The Idea of the 2.0 or even the smaller ZR1 is you can keep most of the original block architecture and with the smaller bore add more strength.
JZ also has illustrated well the many other issues.
One more to add is that these are global engines and often the size is to also better fit many small displacement markets to beat the taxes of larger displacement engines. The taxes do not cover the turbo engines added compressed air as displacement.
When you deal with these thing just a little can kill an engine. This is why all the 5.0 V8 Mustang guys have always had to O ring the blocks for O ring head gaskets as with only 4 head bolts the cylinder pressure blow out.
The LNF 2.0 on the outside looks like a 2.4 or 2.5 it has much more strength inside.
When you are running hi pressure inside it takes a lot to contain it. That extra .5 of displacement is more than made up with more boost anyways.
Keep in mind the idea is to get more air in the engine. You can do it with displacement or more boost.
Plus one to you here.