2010 Hennessey HPE Camaro

You can order a 725-bhp Hennessey HPE700 LS9 Camaro in any color you like, but this very first example in stealthy Cyber Gray Metallic—with blue “hockey stick” graphics in an ode to the Corvette ZR1’s Blue Devil theme—seems appropriate. Makes me think of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, theoretical forces that can’t be directly observed, yet seem to toy with visible celestial objects with unimaginable energy. And supermassive black holes—you can’t see ’em (at least inside the event horizon, where even photons of light can’t escape their gravitational pull) yet they’re the engines of quasars, whose epic release of light and energy is the most impressive display of cosmic horsepower since the Big Bang.

The car world’s version of dark energy is before you, and easygoing Texan John Hennessey is the rocket scientist responsible.

John’s dazzled us before with outrageous twin-turbo Venom Vipers, one of which went 210.2 mph in our Standing Mile Shootout (September 2005). But now he’s stuffing the 6.2-liter LS9 V-8 from the ZR1 into the Camaro, trading exhaust-driven compressors for the 4-lobed helixes of Eaton’s TVS 2300 Roots-type supercharger.

Now the LS9 is the most powerful engine ever fitted to a GM production car—638 bhp in stock tune—but naturally, that didn’t stop Hennessey from extracting more power. A smaller pulley on the blower’s snout raises peak boost from 11.0 psi to 14.5, and the air-to-water heat exchangers within the central plenum are reworked for better flow. A carbon-fiber 4-in. cold-air induction system capped with a conical K&N filter lowers intake restriction, and 17/8-in. stainless long-tube headers expedite outflow of gases to a 3-in. X-pipe center section, high-flow cats and, curiously, a factory rear section that includes standard-issue mufflers. “The neat thing about superchargers,” says Hennessey, “is they’re not real sensitive to exhaust restriction…the blower will just force the air through the motor and out the exhaust. So don’t put a banana in the tailpipe of this thing; it’d launch it into outer space!” Well, with 725 bhp and 741 lb.-ft. of torque, a low earth orbit maybe.

Read entire article HERE.