Amped Up Trucks

When it comes to stock pickups, there is always someone willing and able to do more.  After all why settle for 420 horsepower when with a stroke of a pen ( sometimes a VERY big stroke) you can pay for some easy, streetable upgrades and get 700 or more horsepower?

 

When it comes to power merchants, Hennessey Performance Engineering pushes the envelope of what the Detroit slide ruling engineers wanted out of these massive V-8's. They recently announced that they took a new 2020 Corvette C8 and pushed it to 205.1 miles per hour, so obviously they know their stuff. Plus these power pundits, which has been around since 1991, offer a three year/36,000 mile warranty on their equipment.

 

Take a 6.2 liter stock V-8 from General Motors and add a 2.9 supercharger to produce a modest six pounds of boost. Change out the camshaft and pushrods to handle that extra oomph, massage the air flow and the intercooling and tweak a few settings on the electronics with a reversible tune and you get a whooping 700 horses at 6,300 rpm's.    That allows for a 0-60 mph time of 4.3 seconds.  The team at Hennessey limits their production to only 100 units a year. To push you back in the seats will set you back just under $30,000 when you provide the donor truck. But wait there is more!  You could add a Stage One off road package for only $19,000 more that gives you a six inch lift and some extra play toys.

 

Of course you know the blue oval would be eligible for an upgrade too and the Hennessey Team didn't disappoint. Take a 5 liter Coyote equipped F-150 with 395 horsepower from the factory. Add a similar 2.9 liter supercharger, include a ram air hood intake, and go all out with improved Brembo 15.1 inch brakes, a six inch lift kit and plenty of LED lights and change out the bumpers and interior too.  This produces 775 horses at 7,000 rpm. This produces a 0-60 mph time of 4.0 seconds and a true quarter mile time of 12.1 seconds with a trap speed of 116 mph.  All this for an all in price of around $115,000 with a planned limit of 100 exclusive units a year.

 

I must have saved the best, fastest and meanest for last with the Jeep Gladiator upgrade.  Take a base Jeep Gladiator truck and squeeze in a 6.2 liter supercharged Hell cat motor.  Their tweaks on the engine produce a horrendous 1000 horsepower with a tree stump pulling 933 pounds of torque.  They throw in a six inch lift kick and a ton of goodies.  At $225,000 all in, you might need some friends to help chip in their stimulus checks too. But better hurry as they only plan on producing twenty four of these beasts with some already sold to anxious buyers.

 

 

Now not all of us, especially me, can afford to write a check for these monsters but it is nice to see what can be done with a "money is no object" attitude. But there are plenty of upgrades that all of us can do to our rides to get more power to the wheels. So have at it boys and girls.