General Motors'

Opel Opel Automobile GmbH (), usually shortened to Opel, is a German automobile manufacturer which has been a subsidiary of Stellantis since 16 January 2021. It was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA ...

subsidiary in Europe designed a compact

V6 engine A V6 engine is a six- cylinder piston engine where the cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V6 engines were designed and produced independently by Marmon Motor Car Company, Deutz Gasmotoren Fa ...

with an unusual 54° vee angle. It was an iron block/aluminum head

DOHC An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion ch ...

design with 4 valves per cylinder. All 54° engines were assembled at

Ellesmere Port Ellesmere Port ( ) is a port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, north of Chester, south of Birkenhead, southwest of Runcorn and south ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

History

In the early 1990s, Opel identified the need for a modern, lightweight and compact power plant to replace its aging

straight-six engine The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine bal ...

range. These engines have a

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impu ...

engine block In an internal combustion engine, the engine block is the structure which contains the cylinders and other components. In an early automotive engine, the engine block consisted of just the cylinder block, to which a separate crankcase was attac ...

with

cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William ...

aluminium alloy An aluminium alloy (or aluminum alloy; see spelling differences) is an alloy in which aluminium (Al) is the predominant metal. The typical alloying elements are copper, magnesium, manganese, silicon, tin, nickel and zinc. There are two princip ...

cylinder head In an internal combustion engine, the cylinder head (often abbreviated to simply "head") sits above the cylinder (engine), cylinders and forms the roof of the combustion chamber. In sidevalve engines, the head is a simple sheet of metal; whereas ...

s. The cylinder heads contain

4 valves per cylinder In automotive engineering a multi-valve or multivalve engine is one where each cylinder has more than two valves. A multi-valve engine has better breathing and may be able to operate at higher revolutions per minute (RPM) than a two-valve engine ...

actuated by

dual overhead camshaft An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion ch ...

s which are driven by a timing belt. These engines however, differed from many modern

s in that it has a 54 degree

cylinder bank The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

angle; as opposed to the more conventional 60 degree setup. This added to the engines' compactness which was needed to allow its use in

front-wheel drive Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longi ...

applications, as well as

rear-wheel drive Rear-wheel drive (RWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the rear wheels only. Until the late 20th century, rear-wheel drive was the most common configuration for cars. Most rear-wheel ...

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

. Other features of these engines include: an oil to water

heat exchanger A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct conta ...

is mounted within the V of the engine block,

Bosch Bosch may refer to: People * Bosch (surname) * Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516), painter * Van den Bosch, a Dutch toponymic surname * Carl Bosch, a German chemical engineer and nephew of Robert Bosch * Robert Bosch, founder of Robert Bosch Gm ...

Motronic Motronic is the trade name given to a range of digital engine control units developed by Robert Bosch GmbH (commonly known as Bosch) which combined control of fuel injection and ignition in a single unit. By controlling both major systems in a si ...

engine management system An engine control unit (ECU), also commonly called an engine control module (ECM), is a type of electronic control unit that controls a series of actuators on an internal combustion engine to ensure optimal engine performance. It does this by re ...

with full sequential fuel injection, knock control on each bank, Distributorless Ignition System (DIS), and closed loop lambda control. Minor changes were made to the unit during its production, including an uprated oil pump around mid-1997, with the addition of larger oilways in the head machining (T-Vents), and modified valve lifters to reduce top-end valve noise, at which point the

cam belt Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all Eukaryote, eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the Second messenger system, sec ...

arrangement also changed with the lower idler moving. Around 1998, the spin-on metal canister

oil filter An oil filter is a filter designed to remove contaminants from engine oil, transmission oil, lubricating oil, or hydraulic oil. Their chief use is in internal-combustion engines for motor vehicles (both on- and off-road ), powered aircraft, ...

was changed to a disposable paper element.

Revision

The engine was reworked substantially in 2000 in order to meet increasing emission requirements; with the 2.5 and 3.0 being replaced by lower compression 2.6 and 3.2 units. While displacement was changed the bore centers and deck height were retained. These later power plants had a revised engine management system setup, which used quad

lambda sensor An oxygen sensor (or lambda sensor, where lambda refers to air–fuel equivalence ratio, usually denoted by λ) or probe or sond, is an electronic device that measures the proportion of oxygen (O2) in the gas or liquid being analysed. It was d ...

control, coil per plug

ignition system An ignition system generates a spark or heats an electrode to a high temperature to ignite a fuel-air mixture in spark ignition internal combustion engines, oil-fired and gas-fired boilers, rocket engines, etc. The widest application for spark ig ...

and

drive by wire Drive by wire, DbW, by-wire, steer-by-wire, fly-by-wire or x-by-wire technology in the automotive or aviation industry is the use of electrical or electro-mechanical systems for performing vehicle functions traditionally achieved by mechanical link ...

throttles. The 3.2 also received a stronger steel crankshaft. As a result of these changes the EGR and secondary air injection system were removed.

Recalls

In its 3.0 L form, this engine was notable for recalls of all units installed in

Cadillac Catera The Cadillac Catera is a four-door, five passenger, rear-wheel drive luxury sedan marketed from 1996 until 2001 by Cadillac over a single generation in the United States. As a rebadged variant of the Opel Omega B, the Catera was manufactured b ...

s due to timing belt tensioner bearing failures, which could cause catastrophic damage to the engine because of its

interference Interference is the act of interfering, invading, or poaching. Interference may also refer to: Communications * Interference (communication), anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a message * Adjacent-channel interference, caused by extra ...

design.

2.5

1996 Holden Calibra (YE) V6 coupe (2005-08-14)

The C25XE or B258I has an bore and stroke which displaces . It produces a ''

Deutsches Institut für Normung ' (DIN; in English, the German Institute for Standardisation Registered Association) is the German national organization for standardization and is the German ISO member body. DIN is a German Registered Association ('' e.V.'') headquartered ...

'' (DIN) rated output of @ 6,000 rpm, and generates @ 3,200 rpm of torque. It was introduced in the

Opel Vectra The Opel Vectra is a mid-size car ( large family car) that was engineered and produced by the German automaker Opel from 1988 until 2010. Available in saloon, hatchback and estate body styles, the Vectra was also sold by the Vauxhall marq ...

Vauxhall Cavalier The Vauxhall Cavalier was a large family car that was sold primarily in the UK by Vauxhall from 1975 to 1995. It was based on a succession of Opel designs throughout its production life, during which it was built in three incarnations. The fir ...

(both codenamed "Vectra-A") and Opel/Vauxhall Calibra. It features Bosch Motronic 2.8.1 engine management (omega) then M2.8.3 (calibra 1994, vectra 1995) in 1994 approx. and a compression ratio of 10.8:1. For 1994, in order to meet more stringent emission requirements, a secondary air injection system, and an EGR valve were added to the C25XE and it became the X25XE. The exception being the 1997 Calibras, which, due to unavailability of C25XE engine blocks, were produced using the X25XE block but without modifications to the top end of the engine, and without addition of EGR. The X25XE also benefitted from higher volume oil pump.

Firing order The firing order of an internal combustion engine is the sequence of ignition for the cylinders. In a spark ignition (e.g. gasoline/petrol) engine, the firing order corresponds to the order in which the spark plugs are operated. In a diesel engi ...

is 1-2-3-4-5-6 The breakdown of the engine name is as follows: X - Exhaust Emissions Level: 94/12/EC, stage 2
25 - 2.5 Litre displacement
X - Compression Ratio - 10.0:1-11.5:1
E - Mixture System - Injection Applications: * Holden VS Commodore (export only) * 1993-1997

Opel Calibra The Opel Calibra is a coupé, engineered and produced by the German automaker Opel between 1989 and 1997. In the United Kingdom, where it remained on sale until 1999, it was marketed under the Vauxhall brand as the Vauxhall Calibra. It was also ...

* 1994-2000

Opel Omega B The Opel Omega is an executive car engineered and manufactured by German automaker Opel between 1986 and 2004. The first generation, the Omega A (1986–1993), superseded the Opel Rekord. It was voted European Car of the Year for 1987, and was ...

* 1993-1995 Opel Vectra A * 1995-2000 Opel Vectra B * 1993-1998

Saab 900 The Saab 900 is a mid-sized automobile which was produced by Saab from 1978 until 1998 in two generations; the first from 1978 to 1993, and the second from 1994 to 1998. The first-generation car was based on the Saab 99 chassis, though with ...

* 1993-1995

MSD version

A special edition of the X25XE was worked by Motor Sports Developments (MSD); which includes reprofiled

camshaft A camshaft is a shaft that contains a row of pointed cams, in order to convert rotational motion to reciprocating motion. Camshafts are used in piston engines (to operate the intake and exhaust valves), mechanically controlled ignition systems ...

s, giving the engine an increase of . This engine appeared in two special edition Vauxhall Vectras, first the Vectra ST200 (Not the normal SuperTouring), and then the Vectra 2.5 GSi V6. Applications: * Vauxhall Vectra ST200 * Vauxhall Vectra 2.5 GSi

3.0

The X30XE, L81, B308I, or B308E has a bore and stroke which displaces with a compression ratio between 9.5:1 and 10.8:1. The naturally aspirated version of the engine produces between , and @ 6,000 rpm with to @ 3,400 rpm. The B308E is a slightly modified X30XE used in the

Saab 9-5 The Saab 9-5 is an executive car that was produced by the Swedish automobile maker Saab from 1997 to 2012. The first generation 9-5 was introduced in 1997 for the 1998 model year, as the replacement to the Saab 9000. At the time, the car repr ...

. Engine management systems are Bosch Motronic M2.8.1, and later (approx. 2000) M2.8.3. Firing order is 1-2-3-4-5-6. X - Exhaust Emissions Level: 94/12/EC, stage 2
30 - 3.0 Litre displacement
X - Compression Ratio - 10.0:1-11.5:1
E - Mixture System - Injection Applications: * 1997–2001

* 1996–2000 Opel Sintra * 1995–2000

Opel Omega The Opel Omega is an executive car engineered and manufactured by German automaker Opel between 1986 and 2004. The first generation, the Omega A (1986–1993), superseded the Opel Rekord. It was voted European Car of the Year for 1987, and ...

* 1995–1997

Saab 9000 The Saab 9000 is an automobile produced by the Swedish company Saab from 1984 to 1998. Representing the company's foray into the executive car scene, it was developed as a result of the successes of the turbocharged 99 and 900 models. The 9000 r ...

* 2000–2005 Saturn L-Series * 2002–2003

Saturn Vue The Saturn Vue is a compact SUV that was sold and built by Saturn, and it was Saturn's best-selling model. It was the first vehicle to use the GM Theta platform when it was introduced in 2001 for the 2002 model year. The Vue was later facelifte ...

B308E

For 1997,

Saab Saab or SAAB may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB ** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB * Saab Automobile, a fo ...

introduced a

turbocharged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

version called the B308E for their 9-5 model. The engine produced at 5000 rpm and of torque at 2500-4000 rpm. The engine was unique in that it used asymmetrical turbocharging; with the turbocharger driven by the exhaust gases from only one bank of cylinders. A charge pressure of was produced using a

Garrett Garrett may refer to: Places ;United States * Garrett, Illinois * Garrett, Indiana * Garrett, Kentucky (multiple places) ** Garrett, Floyd County, Kentucky, an unincorporated community ** Garrett, Meade County, Kentucky, an unincorporated communi ...

GT15 turbo. The engine was equipped with a special version of

Saab Direct Ignition Saab Direct Ignition is a capacitor discharge ignition developed by Saab Automobile, then known as Saab-Scania, and '' Mecel AB'' during the 1980s. It was first shown in 1985 and put into series production in the Saab 9000 in 1988. One of the fi ...

and used the Trionic T7 engine management system. This turbocharged version of the engine weighs 195 kg and uses the

Trionic T7 engine management system. Applications: * 1997–2003

2.6

The Y26SE or LY9 engine has a displacement of with a bore and stroke of , developing a maximum power output of and of torque with a 10.0:1 compression ratio. It was used in: *

B * Opel Vectra B *

Cadillac CTS The Cadillac CTS is an executive car that was manufactured and marketed by General Motors from 2003 until 2019 across three generations. Historically, it was priced similarly to cars on the compact luxury spectrum; but it has always been size ...

(Europe)

3.2

The LA3 or Y32SE is a complete redesign of the L81 for the

and

B. It had fixed (non-variable) valve timing, and a

variable length intake manifold In internal combustion engines, a variable-length intake manifold (VLIM),variable intake manifold (VIM), or variable intake system (VIS) is an automobile internal combustion engine manifold technology. As the name implies, VLIM/VIM/VIS can vary ...

. The engine has a bore and stroke with a 10.0:1 compression ratio. This engine produced at 6000 rpm and at 3400 rpm. Production started in July 2001, but the engine was replaced by the new

GM High Feature engine The GM High Feature engine (also known as the HFV6, and including the 3600 LY7 and derivative LP1) is a family of modern General Motors DOHC V6 engines. The series was introduced in 2004 with the Cadillac CTS and the Holden Commodore (VZ). It is ...

starting in 2004. This engine was used in: * 2003–2004

B *

C *

Opel Signum The Opel Signum is a large front-engine, front-wheel drive, five-passenger, five-door hatchback manufactured and marketed by the German car manufacturer Opel from 2003 to 2008, exclusively over a single generation, derived from the Opel Vect ...

And last modification is Z32SE it is modified Y32SE with a 10.0:1 compression ratio and 155kW and 310Nm with Euro4 norm. This engine was used in Europe: *

C *

History

Revision

Recalls

2.5

MSD version

3.0

B308E

2.6

3.2

References

See also