5 Crate Engines With 1,000+ HP, Ranked
Back in the days before Dodge started offering Challenger variants with four-digit horsepower and a factory warranty, a 1,000-horsepower build represented something weird, rare, and wonderfully grotesque.
Today you can buy a 1,000+ horsepower monster right off the shelf and have it delivered to your garage door. We’ve ranked five of the most ridiculously powerful by their manufacturer-provided horsepower specs.
They’re all excessive. Just how much excess you need is up to you.
5
Chevrolet Performance ZZ632/1000
Output: 1,004 HP
We’re not exactly going to call a 1,004-horsepower engine quaint, but there is something reassuring about solving the power problem with a giant V8 that’s just living in the moment without a turbo or supercharger in sight. Chevrolet’s ZZ632/1000 takes “there’s no replacement for displacement” and runs with it, hard, with a naturally aspirated 632-cubic-inch big block. The result is that 1,004 hp figure, plus 876 lb-ft of torque. It’s practically begging to be dropped into a classic Chevy.
Speaking of quaint, once you’ve got this thing running, you can fill it up right at your local gas station on plain old 93-octane premium gasoline, no race gas or additives required. Of course, you’ll have to part with around $34,000 to get your hands on one, and Chevrolet specifies that it’s intended for competition use, so getting it onto public roads might be a different story. The ZZ632 is Chevy’s largest big-block ever, and it’s also very orange, with bright valve covers and a 632 logo so that as soon as you pop the hood, everyone knows what’s up.
4
Direct Connection Hellephant C170
Output: 1,025 HP
The Hellephant C170 is Mopar’s answer to anyone who wants the frankly offensive factory horsepower of their nastiest 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi without having a Dodge Demon wrapped around it. That’s 1,025 hp and 945 lb-ft of torque, with a lot of help from a 3.0-liter supercharger and some seriously overbuilt internals.
You’re going to need E85 to get the most out of this one, though you can run it on premium if you don’t mind nerfing the output a bit.
This one will set you back $32,995, meaning that you get about 90 percent of the reason someone would buy the late great Challenger SRT Demon 170 for about a third of the price of actually ordering the whole car. Either way, it’s nice that Mopar isn’t keeping this kind of preposterous power hostage and will happily ship it to you in a crate. Drop this into your Mopar-flavored build and you’ll pretty much elevate any project to its logical final form.
3
Wegner 427 Whipple LSX
Output:1,200+ HP
One of the most frustrating elements of the modern automotive internet is that there’s so much coverage of LS swaps that the enthusiast community has become numb to the premise. For those who need a legitimately outrageous LS to feel anything at all, there’s the Wegner 427 Whipple LSX, a 1,200 hp, 427-cubic-inch menace with 1,100 lb-ft of torque, a 3.0-liter supercharger, and a forged rotating assembly.
Complete packages start at $37,600, with each engine built to order by Wegner. The foundation is a General Motors LSX iron block with forged internals to handle the boost. They’ll also dyno-tune everything before it heads your way.
The appeal here isn’t just the power, though there’s obviously a whole lot of it. It’s having a specialist assemble and tune the entire package before it gets to you, saving valuable time and aggravation that you can instead direct to figuring out how the rest of the car is going to stand up to 1,200 horses.
2
Steve Morris 540 BBC
Output: Up To 1,500 HP
On the one hand, when you start turning the corner on 1,000 hp and heading toward 2,000, you’re getting a bit beyond the stuff of ordinary road cars. On the other, at the center of the Steve Morris 540 BBC is still a not-exactly-exotic big-block Chevy V8. The 540-cubic-inch engine can be cranked up to 1,500 hp and is just begging to be the beating heart at the center of a Nova or C10 pickup that’s destined for the drag strip.
This one starts with a Dart BIG M iron block and adds forged internals and a custom camshaft. You can choose a few different approaches to forced induction, including a ProCharger centrifugal supercharger or a Magnuson 2650. And the company calls the result “street-friendly,” so it must be tame enough, right?
A turnkey package with forced induction starts at $53,995, with up to 1,500 hp on the menu, representing the most significant price jump on our list so far. At some point, those additional horses do start costing serious money.
1
Nelson Racing Twin-Turbo 572 Hemi
Output: 2,500 HP
If the Hellephant represents the kind of absurd horsepower Dodge is willing to sell you in a box, the Nelson Racing Twin-Turbo 572 Hemi is that same Mopar formula taken to the limit and sold by someone without Stellantis shareholders to answer to. They’ve taken the 572-cubic-inch Hemi V8 and added a pair of giant 88mm turbochargers that yield an advertised 2,500 hp and 1,972 lb-ft of torque.
It’s not just more power than the Hellephant, it’s more power than two of them.
The engine uses an aluminum block, forged pistons, and billet connecting rods, with packages built to customer specifications. Prices start at $74,000 (again, multiple Hellephants), and that’s before you get into the extensive variety of customization options. We checked all the boxes on the website and got a total cost estimate of $116,295. We’re not entirely sure what project needs such a thing, but whatever it is, Nelson says you can have it with AC.
Sources: Chevrolet Performance, Direct Connection, Dodge, Wegner Automotive, Steve Morris Engines, Nelson Racing Engines, Summit Racing
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