1963 Chevy C10 Truck Fully Restored With Vintage Air on 2040-cars

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The Corvette Museum sinkhole has been filled

After swallowing eight of the most prized pieces of the collection from the National Corvette Museum, the massive sinkhole from a year ago is rapidly becoming nothing but a bad memory. Based on the museum's weekly construction update, you can barely see the remnants of the 25-foot deep hole once in the floor. The Corvette Museum's Skydome was not always going to look like this. The original hope was to keep the sinkhole there as a tourist attraction. That plan eventually fell through, though, and instead it was decided five of the less-damaged Corvettes would remain unrestored. Progress has been moving fast to get the repairs done. Even a month ago, the hole was still very visible, and the construction company used remote-controlled Bobcat loaders to fill it in. Now, the museum has launched a contest to guess how many tons of stone it took to fill in the massive crater. The winner gets a print of the 2009 Corvette ZR1 Blue Devil being lifted out. Related Gallery National Corvette Museum Car Recovery View 25 Photos News Source: Corvettemuseum via YouTubeImage Credit: National Corvette Museum Weird Car News Chevrolet GM Videos National Corvette Museum

Chevy's 6.6-liter Duramax is pretty much all new

To say there's a heated battle in heavy-duty pickups is an understatement, with Chevrolet, Ford, and Ram constantly trading blows of increased torque, horsepower, and towing capacity. The latest salvo is the revised, more powerful turbo diesel 6.6-liter Duramax V8 in the 2017 Chevy Silverado. It has 910 pound-feet of torque, an increase of 145, putting it nearly level with the Ford Super Duty. Here's a closer look at where those gains come from. How exactly did Chevrolet add all that torque plus 48 horsepower? The automaker essentially took a fine-tooth comb to the entire engine. Chevy says it changed 90 percent of the V8, and the cumulative effect of those small changes adds up to big increases. As you might guess, the turbocharger is updated. The larger unit features electric actuation of the variable nozzle turbine (VNT), and what Chevy calls a double axle cartridge mechanism that separates the VNT moving parts from the housing. That helps with heat performance as well, with a claim that the exhaust side of the turbo can run continuously up to 1,436 degrees Fahrenheit. Helping that cause are six exhaust gaskets made of Inconel - an nickel alloy that contains chromium and iron – and upgraded stainless steel for the exhaust manifold. Despite having the same cast iron cylinder block, albeit with some minor enhancements, the engine has new cylinder heads, pistons, piston pins, connecting rods, and crankshaft, which have all been upgraded to handle 20 percent higher cylinder pressures. Alongside the increase in pressure, Chevrolet also increased the cylinder head's structure with a honeycomb design. The pattern features high-strength aluminum with dual layer water jackets that not only improve strength, but also optimize water flow for better cooling. For 2017, the cylinder head also benefits from integrated plenum that aids the engine in getting more air under heavy loads. The cylinder head isn't the only component to get a minor update, as the pistons have a larger diameter pin for improved oil flow. The same detailed improvements has been bestowed to the humble connecting rods (second in our hearts only to the inanimate carbon rod). The new design has the bolts oriented roughly 45-degrees to the rod instead of parallel. The angle split design, as it's called allows for easier passage through the cylinder.

Chevy Express, GMC Savanna reportedly ending production for 2025

The oldest commercial vans on the market may only have a few years left, according to a report from Autoweek. The news outlet cited a "competitive analysis source" in saying that the Chevy Express and GMC Savanna commercial vans would be discontinued after the 2025 model year. They would then be replaced by a new electric van, likely Ultium-platform based, for the 2026 model year. We reached out to GM for comment, and this is the official statement sent to us: "We have said in the past that as part of GM’s larger EV acceleration plans that we will add two new vehicles to our commercial portfolio. The first is a full-sized battery electric cargo van and the second is a medium-duty truck that will put both Ultium and our Hydrotec hydrogen fuel cell technology to work. We have not disclosed timing, names or shared any other details, so any articles reporting more are purely speculative." The GM vans are mighty old, having been introduced for the 1996 model year. They've barely changed since then, having received just some facelifts and updated powertrains over the years. And with GM's electrification plans, we're not surprised that these vans will be on the way out. We do have some disagreement about the reported timeline for replacement, though. We suspect that the upcoming electric vans will overlap with the old vans for at least a year. The reason being that there are a lot of these vans on the road, and there are a lot of pieces of equipment that fit them. Box vans, buses and more have components that have been designed for the Express and Savanna. If you're a fleet that has invested in these components, you might not be ready to shift over to a whole new platform. So GM will probably want to give fleet buyers one last opportunity to replace any old vans before committing entirely to a new electric van platform. It will also be interesting to see what kind of market the GM electric vans enter. Ford already has its electric Transit on the way, and Stellantis will be launching the Ram ProMaster electric van next year. Those are both based on existing gas-powered vans. And GM itself has already delivered the first of its larger BrightDrop EV600 electric vans to FedEx. The coming GM vans will likely be new platforms, which could give them performance and range advantages, though the Ford and Stellantis vans will have the advantage of being compatible with equipment for the gas variants.