Mopar officials have told Muscle Cars & Trucks that production of the Hellephant engines will begin before the end of the calendar year, after catching and rectifying a quality issue beforehand.
Full details of the issue were not immediately disclosed officially, but sources confirmed to MC&T that the primary issue revolved around too much camshaft tension, leading to failure of the critical part. FCA looked to fix the issue before beginning engine production and shipping them to customers.
Output for the mammoth engine is 1,000 hp and 950 lb-ft of torque, beating the Dodge Demon engine’s output of 840 hp and 770 lb-ft of torque.
On April 26, 2019, Mopar celebrated 426 Day by announcing that customers can begin placing orders for the 426 cubic-inch, 1,000 hp Hellephant crate engine at a price of $29,995. The crate engine comes assembled with a water pump, flywheel, oil pan for the front sump, supercharger and throttle body, coil packs, and fuel injectors.
“The response was pretty overwhelming. They ‘sold out’ a year’s worth of production in two days… I can’t speak to the delay, but of course with anything we bring to market we want to make sure that it’s fully validated and appropriate for customer use,” said head of Mopar performance and accessories Kim Mathers to MC&T.
Mopar declined to disclose on sharing production volume of the Hellephant crate engine, which is hand-built in Indiana.
Another $2,265 adds the Hellephant “plug-and-play” engine kit for nearly any pre-1976 vehicle, which Mopar claims would make for “a relatively simple plug-and-play by experienced installers.” This package includes an unlocked powertrain control module (PCM), power distribution center, engine wiring harness, chassis harness, accelerator pedal, ground jumper, oxygen sensors, charge air temperature sensors, fuel pump control module and cam bus interface device.
The Hellephant crate engine made its debut last year at the 2018 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. the supercharged 6.9L V8 engine features 4.0 inches of stroke and a bore measured at 4.125 inches. To save weight, the Hellephant utilizes an all-aluminum engine block, which was validated in Mopar Dodge Challenger Drag Pak race vehicles that dominated the 2018 NHRA Factory Stock Showdown class via racing superstar Leah Pritchett, Don Schumacher Racing, and others.
Also for the 2018 SEMA Show, the Hellephant crate engine was dropped into the Dodge Super Charger Concept muscle car, pictured below. We haven’t seen any radical builds surface featuring this insane crate motor from third parties, but we imagine that it won’t be much longer with this being the case.