Erebus reveals Benz V8 Supercar engine specs

DETAILS of the powerplant that will drive the Mercedes-Benz charge in next year’s expanded V8 Supercars line-up have been leaked online, revealing the race engine will have more power but less torque than Benz’s road-going E63 AMG.

Erebus Racing, the driving force behind the German luxury marque’s entry in the expanded competition, revealed in bulletin briefly published on its website that the E-Class-based race car will use a modified 6.2-litre V8 racing engine pulled back to 5.0 litres, but pumping out 485kW of power at the maximum 7500rpm, and a well of 616Nm of torque.

That compares with 386kW and 630Nm for the twin-turbo 5.5-litre road-going car, which also has a performance pack available that boosts output by 24kW and 100Nm via a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic gearbox.

Erebus, which has joined forces with Stone Brothers Racing to field the Benz V8 Supercar team that has no formal Mercedes-Benz Australia backing, is the first to release specific details of its 2013 engine.

However, it says the bulletin was released on its site in error, and has since taken it down.

Ford, Holden and Nissan all remain tight-lipped on how much poke their engines produce on the grid, but as all engines are controlled by V8 Supercars to ensure parity, they are expected to be the same.

Left: Erebus Motorsport CEO Ryan Maddison (left) and SBR team principal Ross Stone with the Mercedes-Benz engine.

The Benz engine is a variant of Erebus’s Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 race car powerplant, which includes race-proven technology such as dry-sump lubrication to reduce the car’s centre of gravity.

Like all V8 Supercars under the new Car of the Future rules, the Erebus Benzes will employ an Australian-made Albins rear-transaxle sequential gearbox driving the rear wheels.

At 4.9 metres long, the three Erebus cars that Stone Brothers Racing will field in 2013 are 100mm-odd longer than the E63 AMG road-going sedan on which the race car will be based, but the same width, at 1.8 metres.

The race car will sit about 200mm lower than the E63 AMG, at 1.2 metres, and at 2.822 metres the wheelbase is 23mm shorter.

Weight is the big difference between the race- and road-going cars, with the V8 Supercars entrant tipping the scales at 1250kg compared with the E63’s porky-by-comparison 1840kg.

Erebus plans to reveal the car in early January once it clears “contractual obligations”. However, the car won’t turn a wheel in anger until a controlled team test on February 16 at an as-yet unspecified location.

Erebus says the engines used in the V8 Supercars will be built in Germany by AMG. The team is also yet to announce its driver line-up for the 2013 series.

Nissan announced that it will use a race-honed version of its US-made race engine that also serves under the bonnet of the new Nissan patrol, but reduced from 5.6 litres to meet the series cap of 5.0 litres.

While Mercedes-Benz and Nissan will use advanced engines featuring hydraulic-lift valves, Holden and Ford are expected to stick with older pushrod-activated valves for their US-sourced race engines.