A couple of months ago, we told you we would build a 509-inch motivator from the 502 block and crank from Project X, and it's finally coming together. 

 When the old 502/502 Ramjet big-block was pulled out of Project X to make room for the 427-ci ZL1 crate motor, we knew we had to do something cool with the old short-block, so we decided to build a mean solid-roller street engine using the old block and forged crank. The old rods were deemed too weak for a heavy-breather, so we upped the beefcake to some longer 6.385-inch Eagle H-beam rods and some SRP forged pistons. The bore went out to 4.500, and with the original 4-inch stroke gave us 509 inches.

For heads, we decided to go with Trick Flow’s new PowerPort head with a 320cc intake port, along with one of their matching single-plane rectangle-port intakes. We're looking for good things from these TFS pieces. The camshaft is a Vizard-spec’ed street solid roller from COMP with .661/.668-inch lift, 254/260 degrees duration (at .050) and a 105 degree lobe separation. Rockers are Crane Gold 1.7s. Topping it off will be a Holley Dominator—we haven’t decided which one yet.

Today, we got back to our build at Outlaw Racing Engines in Upland, CA. We got as far as measuring for pushrods, and we plan to finish the build-up in the next week or two in time for a May 19 dyno date. If everything goes well, we should have the complete story for you in the September or October issue. We’re shooting for 700 hp on pump gas, and we think that’s real do-able. We’re calling it Project Pile Driver, since it ought to pound the ground for miles around. Stay tuned!