Debunking the Small-Block Ford 500-HP Curse
Everyone has heard it before … “Stock Ford 302 blocks split in half when you make more than 500 horsepower.” That has been an axiom that has been perpetuated longer than some of the staffers here have been alive (and frankly, before the internet as we now know it even existed). But, it seems recently, there has been a push to prove the 500 horsepower limit to be nothing more than an old wives’ tale.
Maybe it’s the fact that social media is now connecting people who previously hadn’t read the internet to know that their block was only good to 500 horsepower (kind of how gravity doesn’t affect Wil E. Coyote until he looks down), and so their 500-plus horsepower 8.2-inch-deck Windsor engines didn’t know they were supposed to turn into a two-piece casting when they exceeded that mark.
However, as Richard Holdener says in this video, “The reality is, the internet isn’t always accurate.” Troubled by the persistence of this belief, Holdener compiled some of his past small-block Ford projects, including his personal street car and Silver State Challenge powerplant, to debunk the idea that at 501 horsepower, an 8.2-deck block will split down the middle.
In this video, Holdener breaks down a total of 10 small-block Ford combinations he’s had a hand in, in addition to his personal blown 302, all of which make more than 500 horsepower, and do so in a number of ways. Little shots of nitrous, big shots of nitrous, roots superchargers, centrifugal superchargers, and even turbochargers all cracked the mythical barrier with no ill-effect.
