It is old news by now to point out that Cadillac’s big decision to spend all kinds of money developing its own twin-turbo engine that was fitted to the CT6-V only to abandon it after producing just 1,400 examples is very odd. But how does the Blackwing engine compare to the LT4 going into the latest CT-5V Blackwing?
Well, in terms of power, not well. That the smaller CT5 makes considerably more power than the CT6 (please just assume that these are all Blackwings, I’m so very tired of spelling out these names in their entirety) is proof that the LT4 is better in at least one respect.
Although it’s not uncomplicated, the C7 Z06’s 6.2-liter supercharged pushrod engine makes nearly 120 hp more than the 4.2-liter Blackwing engine. That said, the smaller, DOHC engine makes nearly as much torque. It’s also reasonable to assume that Cadillac could have gotten more power out of its specially designed engine.
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But still, there’s a beautiful simplicity to the 6.2 and the ultimate decider, if previous reports are anything to go off, appears to have been the compact size of the pushrod V8. Still, it’s worth remembering that this doesn’t make the original Blackwing engine a failure.
Despite being homed in an AWD car that weighs about 2,000 lbs more than the C7 Z06, the CT6 Blackwing was more frugal (at least the last time we had EPA fuel efficiency numbers for the engine). You would have thought that something like this would be important for a company that just said it intended to make every engine more efficient.
In the end, all the ingenious engineering in GM’s kingdom couldn’t keep the CT6-V’s Blackwing from the dumpster. While it’s hard to argue with the power of the CT5-V Blackwing, it is sad to see Caddy drop this engine so fast.