Chrysler’s Pentastar V6 Gets A Thorough Refresh For 2016
By Paulo Acoba
Arguably one of Chryslers most popular vehicles is getting a refresh for 2016.
Anyone whose owned a Dodge, Chrysler or Jeep with a V6 under the hood most likely has had the Pentastar V6 powering you where you need to go. According to our motoring friends over at Car and Driver on their post earlier today (Sept. 1, 2015) the versatile and popular engine will be getting a major overhaul for next year that will see improvements in efficiency, reliability and consequently, a bump in power across the entire power curve. Some of the basic components and characteristics of the original design such as bore, stroke and bore-center spacing will remain the same.
Some of the improvements include new cylinder heads with a bump in compression from 10:2.1 to 11:3.1. Chryslers engineers are mum about what exactly new means but we assume they’ve improved the metallurgy of the old design to take care of some reliability issues with the old design that saw scores of owners coming in with cracked cylinder heads. Furthermore, there’s eight-hole ignition coils, spark plugs are now platinum-tipped, there are new valve springs all around, piston rings are low tension, the crankshaft and crank pins have been lightened and exhaust gases are now cooled upon recirculation.
However, the biggest news is a revised lift strategy for intake and exhaust valve timing. Now there are two valve lift strategies with valves opening up a lot longer when more power is needed.
Improvements have been made to the Pentastar’s stop-start function to reduce detonation when the engine is cycled through starts and stops when everything is warmed all thanks to a high-speed starter motor.
Surprisingly there’s no direct injection added with the costs simply outweighing the benefits. If it ain’t broke why fix it? No official word about power but Chrysler did reveal that power increased by 5 HP in the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Torque supposedly will increase by 15 percent between 1000-3000 RPM. Finally, MPG is reported to increase by 6 percent as well so expect City and Highway figures to bump up by one.