Holden VF Commodore SS V features 6.2-litre V8

UPDATE: Further to the this article, Holden has confirmed that the VF Commodore SS V will carry over its 6.0-litre V8 from the VE, and not the 6.2-litre V8 as installed in the American market Chevrolet SS.

More details of the 2013 Holden VF Commodore SS V has surfaced. This time though, it comes from across the pond, over in the US. At Chevrolet’s unveiling of the Commodore SS V’s twin, the Chevrolet SS (above), the company revealed that the Chevy will run a 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8.

As the Chevy SS and the Commodore SS V are one and the same underneath the skin, this means the new VF SS V’s engine is 0.2-litre larger than the outgoing VE SS V, and the largest ever fitted to a Commodore. The 6.2-litre LS3 V8 is also currently found in the Commodore based HSV range. It produces 325kW in the HSV, but in the VF, it is expected to produce 309kW of power and 563Nm of torque.

With the VF Commodore SS V adopting the new LS3 engine, that leaves HSV with supercharging as the only option to produce even more power than the Commodore. Holden also offers Active Fuel Management (AFM), which shuts down half the cylinders under low load, in the 6.0-litre V8, the LS3 in the HSV has never been offered with such fuel saving technology.

However, General Motors has since upgraded the engine with flex-fuel E85 compatibility and AFM, and rebadging the engine from LS3 to L99 in the process. The new L99 is also equipped with camshaft phasing technology.

The switch to the L99 is an important one for Holden in its quest to reduce the VF SS V’s fuel consumption. The current 6.0-litre V8 returns 12.2L/100km, while the LS3 in the HSV returns 13.5L/100km. The AFM equipped L99 in the VF is expected to return around 12L/100km, when combined with the car’s weight loss of up to 100kg.

Although not officially confirmed, with the LS3 finding its way to the garden variety Commodore, the new VF-based HSV range is all but confirmed to feature a supercharge LSA 6.2-litre V8, as found in the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

It is, however, unlikely that the HSV range will produce the 432kW of power and 754Nm of torque as found in the ZL1. Nevertheless, we can expect the upcoming HSV to have a healthy increase in power over the current generation.