3300+ HP !!
Outlaw doorslammer racing has been around as long as there has been drag racing. Somebody has always pushed the envelope and built bigger and more powerful racing engines for their door cars. The current IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock class came from a Southern racing tradition of no-engine-rules doorslammer racing. On the East Coast street racers for decades have shoe-horned big, big motors into their cars. In fact, way before legal Pro Stocks and Pro Mods had 600, 700, or even 800 cubic inch motors, street racers on Long Island had them in non-descript Impalas racing for $50,000 cash.
| If you can have one of these (engines) why wouldn’t you? |
In recent years almost all types of professional class door car racing such as Pro Stock and Pro Mod have had strict engine rules that covered not only engine size but induction. But there has always been a contingent of racers, especially in the South and Southwest, who were chaffed at the thought of someone telling them how big their engines could be. So was born the Outlaw Pro Mod races and in recent years the American Drag Racing League featuring cars with no engine rules.
Naturally aspirated engine specialists such as Gene Fulton and David Reher are building 800-900 inch nitrous engines for so-called “Outlaw” racers and these engines are making gobs of power, but the leader of the pack as far as maximum horsepower- and torque-producing engines continue to be supercharged or turbocharged engines.
Now engine builders are well known for their reluctance to reveal their secrets, but DRO was able to pry the dyno-room door open just a little at the Buffalo, New York, engine shop, Oddy’s Automotive. The business was started by legendary engine builder and Pro Mod crew chief Jim Oddy. About a year ago he sold his shop to his long-time shop foreman and collaborator Billy Leverentz and moved to Mooresville, NC.
Leverentz is a diehard Mopar freak as well as a talented engine designer in his own right. With the ADRL’s growing popularity as well as his growing tractor puller client list Billy has started building “Outlaw” Hemi engines for both of those users.
On the day we were there, Jim Oddy happened to be visiting the shop and Leverentz had one of the engines on the dyno that he had built with some help from Jim so we were able to get some basic information about the engine and its performance that we can share with our readers.
The engine shown here was built using a Chuck Nuyten billet aluminum block and billet aluminum Ken Veney cylinder heads. When asked specifics about the design of the heads Leverentz would only say that if he told me anything about the heads other than the valve size he would “Have to kill me.” The heads have 2.600” intake valves and 2.100” exhaust valves as opposed to standard (IHRA Pro Mod legal) 2.400” intake and 1.900" exhaust valve size heads. The engine has a 4.467 bore and a 4.150 stroke for an actual displacement of 522 cubic inches. The static compression is, according to Leverentz, “about 11-1.”
The camshaft is a special order Isky billet roller 65mm cam. Billy specified that he uses the Isky .904 diameter “Red Zone” lifter with this engine.