I bet you didn’t know that Cadillac already has a twin turbo V8 engine. With all the buzz of the new twin turbo V8 coming in the new CT6 today it brought me back to the last V8 twin turbo that was used in a Cadillac. Now you may be thinking and scratching your head to figure out which model it was but you may be surprised that it wasn’t that long ago.
The last twin turbo V8 that was used in a Cadillac was only a decade ago and it showed up in limited numbers in turbocharged trim, its milder sibling was actually used in the Oldsmobile Aurora. This engine was code named L47.
The base engine was used in the Oldsmobile Aurora from 1995 to 2003 and was a DOHC 3995cc engine that produced 250 horsepower. It was based on the Northstar engines fo the time but featured a different intake manifold and oil pan due to the decreased bore as well as a simplified type of AC Rochester sequential fuel injection. The engine was also modified and placed into the Shelby Series 1 and produced 320 hp in that trim.
Credit: lasersol.com
The Twin Turbo version came when an engine was needed for the Cadillac Northstar LMP racing program. The engine was highly modified and displacement was slightly reduced to 3990cc (93.0 x 73.4 mm). This version of the engine included 5 main bearings, a cross plane crankshaft, and 29 and 33 mm valves. A dry sump oiling system was added due to the intended use of vehicle and it was backed up by a custom X-Trac 6 speed manual gearbox with an LSD rear differential.
IHI supplied the twin turbochargers and Bosch supplied the multipoint fuel injection while air-to-air intercoolers from Secan cooled the forced air. Once all this was packaged together the engine managed to produce 575 bhp and 480 ft lbs in its first iteration in 2001 while the slightly updated version in 2002 increased power to 600 bph and 497 ft lbs while being able to rev to 7500 RPM.
GM may be hinting at something new and refreshing but knowing some of their parts bin tactics of the past I would not be surprised if some of the tech used in the LMP program doesn’t get pulled from the shelf and used as the basis for this new engine.
