List of GM engines


This list of GM engines encompasses all engines manufactured by General Motors and used in their cars.

Divisions

Until the mid-1970s, most General Motors brands designed and manufactured their own engines with few interchangeable parts between brands. In the mid-1960s, there were 8 separate families of GM V8 engines on sale in the USA.
By the 1970s, GM began to see problems with their approach. For instance, four different North American divisions offered four completely different versions of a 350 cu in V8 engine - very few parts would interchange between the four designs despite their visual similarities, resulting in confusion for owners who naturally assumed that replacement parts would be usable across brands. In addition to these issues and the obvious overlap in production costs, the cost of certifying so many different engines for tightening worldwide emissions regulations threatened to become very costly.
Thus, by the early 1980s, GM had consolidated its powertrain engineering efforts into a few distinct lines. Generally, North American and European engineering units remained separate, with Australia's Holden and other global divisions borrowing designs from one or the other as needed. GM also worked out sharing agreements with other manufacturers such as Isuzu and Nissan to fill certain gaps in engineering. Similarly, the company also purchased other automotive firms, eventually folding their engine designs into the corporate portfolio as well. GM later reorganized its Powertrain Division into GM Global Propulsion Systems, located in Pontiac, Michigan.
GM's German subsidiary, Opel, relies on a range of three-, four- and six-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines. A survey of their range shows a reliance on petrol and diesel four-cylinders, and in 2014, there was only one 3-cylinder engine and one 6 cylinder engine in service in Opel's passenger car range.
In addition to automobile and truck engines, GM produced industrial engines, which were sold by brands such as Detroit Diesel, Allison, and Electro-Motive. Most of these engine designs are unrelated to GM's automotive engines.

Automotive gasoline engines

Two-cylinder

Inline-3

Four-cylinder

Inline-4

Inline-6

Flat-6

V6

From the 1950s through the 1970s, each GM division had its own V8 engine family. Today, there are only two families of V8 engines in production for road vehicles: the Generation IV small-block and its Generation V small-block derivative.

Inline-8

V8

Twelve-cylinder

Four-cylinder

GM entered the diesel field with its acquisition of the Cleveland-based Winton Engine Company in 1930. Winton's main client was the Electro Motive Company, a producer of internal combustion-electric rail motorcars. GM acquired Electro Motive at roughly the same time as Winton.
A partnership of GM's Research and Development Division and their Winton Engine Corporation delivered their first diesel engines suitable for mobile use starting in 1934. The engines were also sold for marine and stationary applications. In a 1938 reorganization, Winton Engine Corporation became the GM Cleveland Diesel Engine Division, and GM's Detroit Diesel Engine Division began production of smaller diesel engines. Locomotive engines were moved under the GM Electro Motive Division in 1941, while Cleveland Diesel retained development and production of large marine and stationary engines.
Cleveland Diesel was dissolved in 1962 and their remaining production moved to EMD. In 1988, the Detroit Diesel Engine Division was incorporated as an independent company, later acquired by DaimlerChrysler in 2005. EMD was sold off by GM in 2005 and is now a subsidiary of Progress Rail Services.

Locomotive engines

Piston