Rumor Says 2022 Corvette Z06 Will Get A High Revving Naturally Aspirated V-8

In the past, Rumors have suggested that the 2022 Corvette Z06 will have a twin-turbo engine midship. However, a new report indicates that the engine won't have turbos after all. The Z06 will use a naturally aspirated 5.5-liter flat-plane twin-cam V-8 engine that revs to 9000 RPM according to this new rumor.

The turbo version of Corvette V-8 will be used in an even more potent version, perhaps a refreshed ZR1. That is an extremely high redline for a larger displacement V-8 engine and should make for a fantastic soundtrack to go along with the car's performance. Motortrend speculates the Z06 could produce as much as 625 horsepower with around 485 pound-feet of torque.

Granted, that would be less than the supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 in the previous version of the Z06. Motortrend says that its source has told it that the engine will be "a screamer." There is another naturally-aspirated flat-plane crank V-8 engine on the market under the hood of the Shelby GT350.

That engine produces 526 horsepower and 429 pound-feet of torque from 5.2-liters of displacement. It makes sense for Chevrolet to build the track-focused Z06 with a naturally aspirated V-8 rather than a supercharged V-8 found in the C7 Z06.

The supercharged C7 Z06 had major heat soak issues to the point where Chevrolet was forced to buy back many of the cars under a class-action lawsuit. As for the ZR1 C8 Vette mentioned before, Motortrend expects that vehicle to produce around 800 horsepower and use hybrid power. Both of these cars sound fantastic.