Before Ferrari went public, they shared a majority of engineering with their cousins at Maserati. Projects like the Enzo and the MC12 shared chassis and engines to accomplish different goals, but now both brands are free to develop their own individual hypercars. Back in May, Maserati celebrated their 80th Anniversary of the Targa Florio win by showing off a prototype of the MC20. Until now, all we knew about the engine was that it involved turbos. What we learned this morning is that the Maserati MC20 engine has been unveiled with F1 technology.
Starting with the most important details, we have a 3-liter V6 with twin turbos. What sets is apart from every other car is truly amazing. Each combustion chamber will be topped by a pre-chamber with its own spark plug. A design invented 50 years ago by Soichiro Honda for fuel economy also works to make incredible power at high rpm. The pre-chamber is connected to the main chamber by swirl ports, where it allows combustion to be much more powerful and efficient. The main chamber has its own spark plug timed to allow these events to create incredible cylinder pressure.
Maserati MC20 Prototype Dedicated to Sir Stirling Moss
This prevents detonation and allows the boost to make use of an 11:1 compression ratio. Also onboard are twin fuel systems, direct injection and port injection with pulses optimized for the pre-chamber at full power, or the normal chamber when cruising. Essentially having two engines using the same internals is genius. It is rated at 630 horsepower and 538 lb-ft of torque (the latter is available from 3,000 rpm to redline). Because this was all done in-house, Maserati’s MC20 project will carry the phrase “100% Made In Modena”. This is one of the most efficient and powerful V6 engines of all time, and there is no doubt the technology will trickle down to their other models. September 9th will be the formal launch, so stay with us for all Maserati news.