GM recently starting testing the GT3 Corvette that will take Chevrolet back to Le Mans in 2024. That is when the GT line up will be revitalised around new regulations based on GT3. This year the factory Corvette LM GTE programme had its final Le Mans outing. As last year when it claimed second that was only the second time in almost a quarter of a century its contender had been mid-engined.
The C8.R was not only groundbreaking in its mid-engined configuration, it was the first Corvette GT racer to abandon a pushrod engine. The motive power came from a heavily modified version of the double overhead camshaft LT6 engine that sits in the production mid-engined Corvette road car.
The LT6 engine retains the 4.4 inch bore spacing of the classic Chevrolet Small Block. The GTE race engine uses a special block casting and majority of its components are race specific.
Where earlier Corvette Le Mans engines were developed by GM in conjunction with Katech the current GTE engine is an in house project at GM’s Powertrain Performance & Racing Center in Pontiac, Michigan. The same is true of the forthcoming GT3 engine.
Thanks to GT3’s Balance of Performance the new GT3 engine requires, relative to the now superseded LM GTE, little by way of development. It is much closer to stock. Moreover, GT3 is a customer-focussed form of racing so engine running costs are more significant than they have been throughout the long factory GT racing era.
The mid-engined GT3 car is known as the Corvette Z06 GT3.R and it had its first shakedown on GM’s Milford Proving Grounds in late September. That was followed by an initial test shortly afterwards at the Mid Ohio circuit. Deliveries are not anticipated before September 2023, when the car will finally be homologated.