1,000-HP Hellephant Engine Buyers Can Finally Celebrate

Mar. 01, 2020 7:35 PM ET by Jay Traugott / 11 Comments

It's about time they did.

It was in October 2018 when FCA revealed its 1,000 horsepower and 950 lb-ft of torque Hellephant 426 Mopar Crate HEMI engine, the first-ever OEM engine to pack that much punch. This V8 crate motor was limited in production to just 100 examples priced at a darn reasonable $29,995 each. Not at all surprisingly, they quickly sold out. This past October, a year since its reveal, Hellephant production was finally getting underway following some mechanical issues that caused unexpected delays.

One issue was reportedly too much camshaft tension, leading the part's failure. Needless to say, that was unacceptable. And now, according to Muscle Cars and Trucks, the hand-built Hellephants are now being delivered to customers. Production takes place in Indiana.

A very happy customer shared a couple of photos of their engine on Facebook as proof. We still don't know if all 100 customers have received their engines yet, but if they haven't they can be rest assured it'll be happening very soon. As further proof of the engine's bargain price tag, Mopar also added a $2,265 easy to install "plug-and-play" kit for anyone looking to install the engine into a pre-1976 vehicle.

This adds an unlocked pressure control modular, 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 fact that the Hellephant can be dropped into early muscle cars is, perhaps, its greatest attribute, and Mopar knows fully knows this. How so? It restored a 1968 Dodge Charger powered by a Hellephant as its 2018 SEMA display vehicle. With all deliveries now imminent, it'll only be a matter of time until we start seeing what these 100 buyers have decided to create.

What we know for certain is that every single one of them will have, at the very least, 1,000 crazy hp on tap.