4.125 inch bore. 3.375 inch stroke. 360.8 inches. 1,750 horsepower. Every Chrysler fan on Earth is going to be grinding their teeth knowing that an engine that size can do some amazing things…and the one in their 1998 Dodge Ram can barely get out of it’s own way. Yikes. It can rev to five-digit RPMs and stay smooth, though it’s sporting an 8,800 RPM redline. The crankshaft is made from a billet of TimkenSteel and costs as much as a good used car on its own. The turbochargers are dual-volute, mounted outboard, and have proven to have a turbo compressor map efficiency rate above 80%, and the ability to push 30 PSI. Oh, and a note: on that record run you saw, the car only peaked at 19 PSI. “Only”…

You want to know what just pushed a wild dream of a hypercar called the Tuatara to aircraft speeds? This engine, a masterpiece from Nelson Racing Engines did. It’s a flat-plane crank V8 at it’s base. It’s not a GM design…Tom Nelson was quick to shut that down when Motor Trend‘s Frank Markus checked in with Tom Nelson himself. It’s a cast block (!) and that was chosen because it could be heat-treated. It’s a dry-sump system with an oil pan that has plenty of baffling inside, which is very necessary when you are trying to outrun your own exhaust noise and are winning the race, You are going to hear the term “flame hoops” a lot with this engine. What that means is that at the top of the cylinder a groove was cut in and a tempered steel ring was fitted to a groove in the head that pinches the head gasket in place to keep it from going south.

This engine’s coils couldn’t return to ground fast enough above 6,000 RPM. They had to engineer that fix using a resistor between coil and ground. The intercooler will temper the charge down beautifully. There’s enough sensors on this engine to monitor any section of the engine and if there is a 10% flux anywhere, limp mode is kicked in.

Frankly, we could go through every final detail that NRE put into this engine. We just hope that they let the technology bleed down into the “lesser” NRE engines. Because their radical street car engines aren’t psychotic enough, right?