First observations, bear in mind that I have not seen one live in person yet, this thread has the pictures that I have seen. I also have the February Diesel Power magazine as a PDF that I will upload here - it has a nice article about them too.
edit: Here is the link to the Diesel Power from February of this year.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5447172/DieselPower-Feb2016.pdfI don't know what to think about the 10 bolts on the cylinder head, so I will defer to GDE's superior knowledge. I just know that I'd be happier knowing there were more, and that they were already studs with superior force. Oh well.
EGR: Not surprised it has that, it also has DEF and DPF, and probably a much more secured nanny system that will require the wizards of GDE to un-screw it. I'm right there about not buying one until the bugs are worked out.
The valve train picture shows me three things right away:
1: They managed to fix the stupidity of VM's cams-in-the-valve-cover design, but the injectors still look center-mounted, so those will still have to be pulled to take the top off.
2: They are still using the same DOHC design from the VM R428 (our engine) and I already know they are still using a timing belt system. Looks like my tools won't be resting anytime soon.
3: They are still using the same roller rockers under the cams. My tools won't be resting much at all, since I now firmly believe that the rockers fail because of the EGR soot and a bad original design for the lube system... I can only guess whether they have fixed the lube issue, but the EGR soot STILL will eat those bearings for lunch.
The EGR system on this thing is enormous, much larger cooler than on the CRD, and it looks like the FCV is still there and now might be a vacuum servo or possibly still electric, but not as large / clunky as the plastic disaster of the CRD.
I don't know what to think yet about the Chinese Delphi injection system, I trust the company that has fuelled just about everything diesel since the dawn of time, Bosch. Their systems have never let me down when cared for even mildly. There are some ancient Mercedes diesels that I think could run on oily sand if you asked them to. Whether GM could reinvent that wheel and manage to discover a successful circle (or the square wheel that they invented with the Oldsmobile conversion back in the 80s) is a guess at this point.
Even the Olds wasn't known as a failure right out of the box, it took some time. I shall wait and see, but I AM curious to drive one from a dealer though, even though I have no money to buy one.