When you hear the word Mazda, SKYACTIV, and clean diesel together you think of an extremely economical powertrain for a family hatchback or the like. But Mazda is actually going to use this for racing. They just announced a program to supply racing versions of its new SKYACTIV-D clean diesel engines to customer teams competing in GRAND-AM’s new GX Class from 2013.

The engines will be based on the stock-block 2.2-liter diesel four-cylinder SKYACTIV diesel units found in the production models. They’re developed jointly by Mazda Motor Corporation, Mazda North American Operations and SpeedSource Engineering and are currently in Dyno testing phase. On track testing will begin in late 2012.These engines are perfect for Grand-Am’s  Class for advanced/clean technologies, but not sure if they’re actually fun for road racing. But we’ll see.

Final specs and pricing will be announced later.

The production Mazda SKYACTIV-D features include:

• 14:1 low compression ratio
• New two-stage turbocharger
• A 5,200 rpm redline
• Compared to Mazda’s current-production 2.2L MZR-CD diesel engine:
  • Up to 20% reduction in fuel consumption
  • 20% reduction in internal engine friction
  • 10% reduction in weight