If nothing exceeds like excess, then Josh Marks should be fairly well placed once he bolts this sucker between the rails of his F100 burnout car. It’s a 542ci big-block Ford, buttoned up by Tim Gruber at Queanbeyan Engine Service – and how about that blower!

First published in the January 2025 issue of Street Machine

“It’s overkill, but when I found it for sale, Josh wanted to go for it anyway!” says Tim. “I wanted to use a screw blower, and I had put a deposit on an 8.3-litre Whipple for this engine, but they ended up being discontinued, so we had to go back to the drawing board. Then I tracked down this monster A980 Whipple in Sydney; I bought it off a drag racer named Rob Broadbent. It was brand new. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the last unused one in the world.”

It’s enough blower for 3000-odd horsepower, and, while the current pulley ratio would provide for around 2500hp on this combo, that’s far more than what’s required. It’ll eventually be tamed down to around 1500hp. “We need it to stay alive in a burnout application at sustained high rpm,” Tim reminds us.

The blower manifold is a 71-series style unit from Eliminator out of the States, and required only slight modification to accept the Whipple pump. The crank support and front drive system, however, is entirely custom, designed and knocked up on the mill by Tim. “I’ve had to machine the crank support and the alternator bracket with the blower idler adapted into it,” he says. “Because the engine will be EFI, we needed an alternator to run all of that.”

Of course, 1500hp requires bulk quantities of methanol, so Tim has specced a hefty fuel system, starting with an Enderle 990 mechanical pump. There are two arrays of injectors, the first being four Plazmaman 5000cc squirters mounted atop the blower, plus a fuel solenoid to meter in methanol at idle. The second set of injectors are Siemens Deka 2400s in the ports, and it’s all run by a MicroTech Big Bertha ECU. “We needed injectors up top to cool and lubricate the blower, and the port injectors allow for individual cylinder tuning,” says Tim. “Besides, we couldn’t fit enough injector in the ports alone; there’s not enough room!”

The engine itself is based on a Ford Performance Parts A460 block, topped with CNC-ported Trickflow aluminium heads. Measuring in at 542ci, it sports a forged steel Scat crank, Oliver Max rods, custom Diamond pistons, and a Crow roller cam with a custom grind applied. A Milodon gear drive spins the cam, while Jet Engineering 7/16-inch pushrods and Yella Terra Platinum rockers bolster the valvetrain.

A dry sump oiling system was deemed necessary, given the hell Josh plans to put the motor through, and the pan and pump were both sourced through Aviaid in the States. The ignition system is an Aussie-made 20-amp ICE deal.

It’s a unique and devastatingly tough combo, which should sound mental once Josh loads it into the F100 and gives it the berries out on the pad.

“It hasn’t been fired yet, but we’re in the process of fitting it to the car at the moment, and then we’ll chassis dyno it here at the shop,” says Tim. “This engine would do a killer burnout with no blower on it, to be honest! We’ll have to slow the blower down to make our target of 1500hp; even then, we’ll probably have to limit the throttle travel to begin with.”

What an awesome problem to have!

BIG SHOT

These Whipple A980 blowers aren’t exactly stacked 10-high at your local speed shop. And while it’s undeniably far too much blower for the combo, there’s no getting around the fact that it looks pretty gangster with its sheer size and the integrated hat. “It’s pretty much a PSI-C screw blower equivalent,” says Tim. “There will be no shortage of airflow if we ever need it!”

Queanbeyan Engine Service,
Queanbeyan, NSW
queanbeyanengines.au

QUEANBEYAN ENGINE SERVICE, QUEANBEYAN, NSW