Factors of 10

Who was the first to bat 1,000? 1,000 horsepower, we mean. Well, the Napier Cub 16-cylinder airplane engine was said to make 1,057 hp in 1920, and land-speed racers went 203.79 mph with the Sunbeam 1000 in 1927, although it made its 900+ ponies with the help of two engines. In the 1940s, we got steam and diesel locomotive engines that could boast the power of more than 1,000 horses, and in airplane design we see the superchargers, turbos, and oxygen-happy fuels that would come to define hot rodding in the years to come. Ask a Top Fuel racer when supercharged, nitro-burning 392 dragsters first boasted 1,000 horses and they’ll shrug and say, “The first time they ran?” From there, it spread like the flame front in an optimized combustion. Boat racing, Indy Cars, street racers, F1, tuned import cars, Calloway Corvettes and Hennessy Vipers, everybody was aiming high, and now it seems like 1,000 hp is the new 500 hp—who doesn’t have it? We wanted to get the scoop on the best way to go big, so we called 10 different engine builders known for dyno dominance and asked ’em how it was done. We thought we’d get 10 different recipes for bumping past 999 horses, but we found that building high-horse performance is more about philosophy than the parts bin.

“I don’t have a single recipe, because everyone who comes in has a different need for their build,” said Dan Timm of Advanced Engine Concepts (AEC) in Green Lake, Wisconsin. “That keeps it interesting. I like a challenge.”

“It’s not hard to make horsepower these days,” said Kenny Duttweiler of Duttweiler Performance in Ventura, California. “The question isn’t, ‘How do you make 1,000 horsepower?’ but rather, ‘How do you make 1,000 horsepower for 100,000 miles?’”

OK, guys, how do you?

ED PINK

NEWBURY PARK, CA EDPINKSGARAGE.COM

SPECIALTIES: SOHC 427 FORDS, HEMIS, FLATHEAD FORDS

We started with Ed Pink, because at 88 years old and with a background in Top Fuel and Indy Car racing, Pink was topping 1,000 when most of the other builders in this story were still worrying about that pinging sound from their baby rattles. With typical modesty, “The Old Master” said he didn’t think he’d be helpful on the topic. “I don’t build those big-cubic-inch engines,” he said, but while he may not be bolting together mountain motors, he’s known for making