Who is the king of crate engines now?

When Dodge released the first Challenger Hellcat, the entire planet was shaking. From the early days, the engine has evolved to the point where you can buy a Demon model with a ridiculous 840 horsepower. Seriously, when is too much power actually too much? Never, really. The Demon is not even the pinnacle of Dodge's engineering capabilities. The automaker showed off a 1,000-horsepower crate engine.

Known as Hellephant, this seems to be the V8 that ends all V8s, and Ford is still catching up. But what about Chevrolet? The Camaro ZL1 has only 650 horsepower and has become quite old. Nevertheless, if Chevrolet cannot directly compete with Dodge in terms of production model output, it can focus on producing the most powerful crate engine ever. How does the idea of ​​1,004 horsepower sound?

Dodge is sure to maintain an advantage in the production car market, at least on paper, and the company seems to have hired better creatives. Although Dodge has a cool name like Hellcat, Chevrolet’s new crate engine has a very corporate name-ZZ632/1000. As the name suggests, this is a 632 cubic inch V8 engine that can produce 1,004 horsepower and 876 pound-feet of torque. It is the most powerful crate engine in the brand's history. However, although Dodge prefers superchargers to reach its absurd numbers, Chevrolet has taken the free-breathing route with its 10.4 liter engine.

"This is the biggest and worst crate engine we have ever built," said Russ O'Blenes, head of General Motors' performance and racing propulsion team. "As the king of performance, the ZZ632 is at the top of our unparalleled crate engine series. It provides incredible power, and it relies on pumping air."

The extraordinary bulk V8 reached a peak power of 6,600 rpm before reaching the red line of 7,000 rpm. It has an eight-port injector and a CNC machined high-flow aluminum cylinder head with symmetrical ports. This is unusual for large cylinders, as these engines traditionally have variable port shapes from cylinder to cylinder.

This symmetry applies to the intake and exhaust ports, and the ports on each side have the same length, volume, and layout design. This means that each cylinder will produce similar power. The cylinder head was named RS-X symmetrical port cylinder head in honor of Ron Sperry. After working on General Motors performance and racing engines for more than half a century, he designed these as one of his swan song projects.

As you would expect, the block is cast from iron, and it happens to share a mold with the ZZ572 crate engine, except that machined castings are used to increase the capacity. Bore diameter has increased by 0.040 inches, and stroke has also increased by 0.375 inches. Both the cylinder block and connecting rod have been modified to accommodate longer strokes, while the four-bolt main cover and forged rotating assembly ensure that the bottom end is as strong as possible. With such a comprehensive top and bottom redesign, it is no wonder that Chevrolet said that an engine has withstood more than 200 simulated resistance band passes on a dynamometer.

If you want to see it up close, the engine will be showcased at the 2021 SEMA show in Las Vegas from November 2nd to 5th. Chevrolet Performance dealers will receive the goods in early 2022.