The Engines of SEMA 2018

By Joe McCollough

11/12/2018

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It's been said that the car is just a stand to hold the engine up. If you believe this, then SEMA is a great place to see what's new in the world of power production.

While some were just silly and over the top, designed to grab attention and little more, most of the engines that we saw were in cars built to handle the power. Here are a few that got our attention.

Here's the hemi that powered Mike Finnegan's Blasphemi '55 to high 8's on Drag Week.

Yes, that's a Ford Y-block with two centrifugal superchargers. Notice that the radiator tank looks like a Y-block valve cover? The rest of the car was pretty slick, too.

LS engines are getting harder to spot, with adapters available to put small-block, big-block, and any number of other old-school valve covers on them.

The Cummins, Beck, and Davidson blown fuel roadster features a 5,000 horse (not a typo) hemi on 70% nitro. It is a serious animal and we were thrilled to see it at SEMA.

Here's the 540 cube, twin-turbo big-block in Jeff Lutz's '57. This thing is supposed to make around 3,500 horsepower.

It's almost rare to see an old-school small-block Chevy these days. This one was beautifully detailed.

Here's another LS that's made to look like it belongs in an old car. This one's in the black '69 Camaro built by Detroit Speed. Incidentally, this car won the SEMA Battle of the Builders this year.

Here's the much-turbo'd Cummins diesel in the crazy, winged Ford F1 Pike's Peak race truck known as "Old Smokey."

The fuel hemi in Megan Meyer's A/Fuel dragster is as photogenic as it is fast.

This is the supercharged 6.0L in Chris Holstrom's '68 Camaro that features a full Speedway Motors front and rear suspension.

This is a Mazda rotary with a giant turbo. It was in a 72 Mazda R100 with dual rear tires. You really do see a bit of everything at SEMA.

We never get tired of seeing early hemis in hot rods.

Well, here it is. This is the 700-horse "motor" that powers Chevy's eCOPO Camaro to 9-second quarter miles.

Not sure what you're looking at here? That's an aluminum, 215-inch Buick in the backseat of a Beetle. Extra cool points to the "Berlin Beetle" for the Hilborn-style injection.

Here's the Hellcat hemi in the Goolsby-built Kasper Duster. We loved this car.

And by the way, that blown fuel Bonneville roadster? Click here to watch it make a 295 mph pass.

For more of our SEMA coverage, check out our "Best of" album here and our favorite race cars here.

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