Here’s your opportunity to help a great cause and get your hands on a very cool engine to power your hot rod at the same time. General Motors is auctioning off the first production LSX454R crate engine later this month at Barrett-Jackson.

The LSX454 engine package has been around for a while, but the R designation is new for this crate engine. Designed around the needs of drag racers, the LSX454R is rated at 750 horsepower and 680 lb/ft or torque–with a carburetor. The engine is built using GM’s LSX Bowtie block and the new high compression LSX DR cylinder heads. These heads use an 11 degree valve angle and raised ports to provide some big flow numbers. The camshaft is a solid roller, and the entire package is topped off with a single-plane intake and a Holley 1,150 cfm Dominator carb.

I certainly don’t have the scratch buy this beast, but I’ll be looking for it when the auction is televised on Speed.

 GRAND BLANC, Mich. – GM Performance Parts (GMPP) will auction the first production LSX454R crate engine at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale event this month, with the proceeds going to the American Heart Association. 

The charity sale is scheduled for the evening of Friday, Jan. 21, and will be carried live on SPEED’s coverage of the Barrett-Jackson auction. The engine carries lot number 1032.1 and bids can be submitted at the auction in person or online.

“GM Performance Parts is thrilled with the opportunity to leverage our high-performance engine, the heart of a vehicle, to help prevent heart disease and stroke,” said Dr. Jamie Meyer, product integration manager for GM Performance Parts. “This sale gives the highest bidder the opportunity to buy the first production version of the most powerful small-block V-8 ever engineered by General Motors.”

“The American Heart Association is honored to work with partners like General Motors, who exemplify corporate citizenship,” said Heather Kinder, executive director for the Southeast Michigan American Heart Association. “This donation further defines GM’s commitment to improving the health of our community.”

Over the years, GM and the GM Foundation have contributed more than $1 million to the American Heart Association.

GMPP’s presence at Barrett-Jackson also will include a display of crate engines, engine parts and project vehicles, including E-ROD emissions-compliant crate engine systems. The Lingenfelter custom ’55 Chevrolet pickup truck featuring the 5.3 E-ROD crate engine (part number 19258004) and the Superformance ’63 Grand Sport Vette with the LSA E-ROD crate engine (part number 19257460) will be showcased. Product experts will be on hand during the event’s Jan. 17-23 run, answering enthusiasts’ questions on how to build their own dream car.

Famous engine builder Jon Kaase has already worked a miracle of sorts by bringing his own version of Ford’s Boss 429 engine back to life. By using his own heads and an easily obtainable FE block, you can create a new-age Boss 429 in displacements anywhere between 429 and 600 cubic inches. They are also capable of some really big power numbers; Kaase says most of the engine built (in many different configurations) wind up producing somewhere between 500 and 1,000 horsepower. Plus, they just look menacing–in a good way.

Now Kaase has upped the ante once again with a new intake manifold that incorporates eight individual stacks and fuel injection. Plus, to help improve both part-throttle response and idle quality, there is a hidden plenum underneath to help equalize pressure in all the intake tracts. And it appears this new intake is about more than just good looks. Kaase says that on a 520 cubic inch version of the Boss Nine with 9.8:1 compression ratio and running on pump gas, the new intake posted 30 lb/ft more torque than the carbureted intake.

For more information, you can check out Jon Kaase Racing here.

This video is from the flooding in Australia. At least the Land Cruiser was saved.

Found this video on YouTube of some pretty intense demolition derby action. Just one word of advice: If you aren’t a fan of ’80s hair bands, turn the sound down before you hit the play button.

Comp Cams has just introduced a new family of camshafts for Ford’s clean-sheet 5.0 motor and look to be quite a design improvement.

The new cams are hydraulic rollers and designed expressly for the new motor. They work with Comp’s phaser limiters so that more agressive lobes can be used for even higher power levels and are even balanced. We all understand that harmonics and unchecked vibrations can both damage parts and rob power.

Here’s what Comp has to say about the value of balanced cams in this Module overhead-cam engine: “The gigantic lobe size on the Ford OHC is unlike any other cam-in-block engine, and the dangerous harmonics that come with the giant lobes must be addressed for high performance usage. By taking cutting-edge race technology and applying it to street applications, COMP Cams® has engineered these new phaser-friendly cams with an exclusive integrated counter balance design that cuts down on vibrations and reduces overall harmonics to ensure a smoother operating valve train that was properly engineered for high lift, long duration valve motion at high RPM. ”

If these new cams sound interesting to you, Comp says that there are designs available for both supercharged and naturally aspirated engines in three different levels. The gentlest doesn’t even require new valvesprings.

How about a little light carnage to start your weekend? The person who posted this video says the culprit was a stretched connecting rod bolt about too much track-day and dyno fun. Enjoy.

Read more in The News.

Thought I’d share a quick shot with you from a short while back.

This is from the World of Outlaws World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This shot is from the Sprint Car area of the pits on Friday afternoon. We struggled with off-and-on rain all day, but the benefit was a double rainbow that hung over the speedway for a few brief minutes. Nothing much was going on around the track, but I was able to grab this shot of the rainbow over the 1B 410 Sprint Car. The feature was rained out that night but we ended up with a great night of racing on Saturday.

In honor of its newest game in the series, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, Electronic Arts staged a real-life version of its video game.

With lots of great car action at speed, it makes for a great break from the daily grind. The idea–What if a Lamborghini Murcielago police car (and helicopter) attempt to pull over a speeding Pagani Zonda that doesn’t want to comply?–may be a bit unrealistic, but the video is a fun two minutes.

One of the go-to engine shops I usually spend a lot of time at is KT Engine Development because it seems they always have something interesting going on.

KT Engines just recently wrapped up an LS engine build for a C5 Corvette race car. The engine is based off of a C5R block and is built with all the good stuff, including a Callies crankshaft, Dyers connecting rods, Diamond forged pistons, dry sump oiling, and a custom intake manifold. They did preliminary testing on their engine dyno with a carburetor because the dyno isn’t setup for fuel injection and a complicated engine management system. Now that the engine is in the car, all the engine management tuning will take place on the chassis dyno.

I’ll cover the complete engine buildup soon here on the website, but in the meantime I thought you might like to hear this monster on the dyno. It produced over 700 horsepower and 600 lb/ft of torque using a Holley 830 carburetor.