

Turbocharged V6 direct injection engines could power the Sprint Cup cars of the future it has been revealed. NASCAR has already started to consider the design of the Generation 7 car despite only having just introduced the Generation 6 cars according to an article in Stockcar Engineering magazine.



“Now that we have launched the Gen-6 car we have some space to work on other things, whether it’s the dashboard or software or things that will take that Gen-7 car and move forward,” NASCAR Vice President for Competition Robin Pemberton revealed. “If you go back six, seven years … when we developed the COT, and before we were even done with that, we were already working on the new Nationwide car,” Pemberton said, “and when it was almost done, we were working on the Gen-6.”

“We’ve talked about it internally and with NASCAR about all sorts of different things to bring more brand identity to them,’’ Pat DiMarco of Ford whilst Pat Suhy of GM added. “The questions we are asking ourselves right now are what does the Generation 7 engine look like? is it a direct injection engine? is it a V8? is it a V6? is it turbocharged? all of that stuff. Whilst we are not talking in great detail at the moment, we will be starting to discuss it seriously soon and I don’t think anything is off the table.” Notably Ford already uses NASCAR to promote its Ecoboost engines despite having a normally aspirated V8 in the racecar.



The overall mass of the chassis may also be reduced and that could raise the prospect of a DTM/ GT500 style composite & steel hybrid chassis. “We could introduce both a new car and a new engine together and make it more relevant to the products we are selling today, smaller, lighter cars with lower displacement higher specific output engines. There are plenty of other ways we can reduce the mass of the cars, things like using composite materials, using other materials other than steel for body panels. It changes the demand on the car too, if you reduce the mass of the vehicle do you need as much roll cage? there are a whole bunch of knock on effects like that” Suhy continues.

The Generation 7 cars are unlikely to take to the track much before 2017 and it remains to be seen if NASCAR’s core fans would accept a car without an eight cylinder engine.

A full article revealing the direction of the Generation 7 cars can be read in the new issue of Stockcar Engineering, available for free download below

Simply register your details below and you’ll be taken to your FREE issue of Stockcar Engineering.