Chevrolet rates the 2027 Corvette Z06's naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V8 at 670 horsepower, with peak power at 8,400 rpm and a redline of 8,600 rpm from a flat-plane crank. Houston-based Late Model Racecraft figured that wasn't enough for one customer's C8.

The shop bolted on two turbochargers and rewrote the car's engine and transmission software from the ground up. The result is a Z06 that now runs on 93-octane pump gas instead of its earlier E85 setup, with numbers that embarrass its factory sibling.

The Corvette had already visited another shop for naturally aspirated bolt-ons before arriving at LMR running on E85. LMR owner Steven Fereday said the car baselined at roughly 597 rear-wheel horsepower before his team touched it.

LMR installed a pair of Precision mirror-image ball-bearing turbochargers, chosen specifically because they are air-to-water units rather than grease-lubricated turbos. Fereday says that avoids the maintenance headache of greasing turbos every 1,500 miles, which keeps the car simple to live with.

An air-to-water intercooling system, with a heat exchanger running coolant to both sides of the engine bay, manages the extra heat the turbos generate under boost. The downpipes feed a deliberately short exhaust. Fereday says that helps the flat-plane-crank V8 keep its snarl even with forced induction.

Custom ECM and TCM tuning rounds out the build. LMR adjusts clutch pressure and shift behavior to let the C8's dual-clutch transmission handle the added torque. Fereday calls that the real limiting factor on high-horsepower builds like this one. Shops chasing even bigger numbers on other GM platforms have taken a similar unlock-the-software approach.

Source link