How Much Does Chevy’s New V-8 Improve the Corvette’s Performance?

• The 2027 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray swaps the LT2 6.2-liter V-8 for the newer LS6 6.7-liter V-8, which adds 40 horsepower and 50 pound-feet of torque.
• With the significant power increase, the obvious question is whether there’s been a commensurate increase in the Stingray’s performance.
• We decided the fairest comparison would be to look at a similarly equipped 1LT Stingray with the Z51 package. Here’s what we found.

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It should come as no surprise that the 2027 Chevy Corvette Stingray is a performance monster. Every C8 Corvette—hell, just about every Corvette—punches above its weight class in terms of performance, but with the launch of Chevy’s new LS6 small-block V-8, the Stingray is officially a 200-mph car for less than $75,000. Now that we’ve tested the 2027 Stingray, we figured it was worth comparing how the new version stacks up against the old one. Given that our example was the entry-level 1LT trim level, we figured the fairest comparison would be to look at the last 1LT Stingray we tested, which was all the way back in 2020 (the mid-engine C8’s first model year).

Acceleration

As anticipated, the new Stingray is quicker, though not by much. Our tester came equipped with the $5395 Z51 Performance package, which adds Michelin Pilot Sport S5 summer tires, stiffer springs, better cooling, an electronically controlled limited-slip differential, and considerably larger brakes. Add it all together, and the sprint to 60 mph arrives in a mere 2.7 seconds. That’s incredibly quick, but not much quicker than the 2020 car’s 2.8-second run.

Keep your foot in it, though, and the gap widens a bit. The new car hits 100 mph in 6.9 seconds and 150 mph in 18.6 ticks. The previous Z51 required an additional three-tenths to break into the triple digits, and it cracked 150 mph as the stopwatch read 19.4 seconds. The 2027 is quicker through the quarter mile too, rushing through in 11.0 seconds flat at 124 mph vs. the 2020 car’s 11.2-second run at 122 mph.

While the base Stingray is good for an even 200 mph, adding the Z51 package actually dials that figure back to 183 mph—one mph lower than the previous Z51. The top-speed penalty comes from a combination of larger cooling ducts for the brakes, the added drag from the front splitter and rear wing, and, perhaps most importantly, a shorter 5.56:1 final-drive ratio (same as in the Z06), which hampers its overall top speed.

Braking

On the one hand, the Z51 package limits top speed. On the other hand, it makes up for it in the braking department. Stopping from 70 mph happens in just 149 feet for both the new and old Stingrays. When stopping from 100 mph, the newer car took 297 feet, versus the older car’s 301 feet, basically a dead heat.

Lateral Grip

Both cars wore 245-series front and 305-series rear Michelin Pilot Sport S tires, while the 2020 car wore the 4S and the ’27 gets the newer S5 rubber. The 2027 car gave up at 1.02 g on our skidpad, making the new version negligibly less grippy than the 2020 car, which pulled 1.03 g. Our 2027 tester tipped our scales at 3702 pounds, some 55 pounds heavier than our 2020 tester, which never helps when it comes to performance.

Efficiency

Unsurprisingly, given the 2027 Stingray’s additional pint of displacement, the new Vette is a touch less efficient than the old one. The LS6-equipped Stingray drops by one mpg across the board compared with the LT2-equipped car. Based on EPA estimates, that comes out to 18 mpg combined, 15 mpg highway, and 25 mpg on the highway.

Sound

But the latest Corvette more than makes up for any fuel-economy slide with a lumpy idle and glorious V-8 soundtrack. At idle, we measured 53 decibels, a whopping 6 dBA higher than the 2020 car. That’s substantially louder. Winding it out to redline, the 6.7-liter V-8 wails to 96 decibels, again a sizable increase over the 92 dBA produced by the 6.2-liter V-8 in the 2020 model. But the 2027 model measured a single decibel quieter (73 versus 74 dBA) when cruising at a steady 70 mph. That’s the best of both worlds.

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