This 800-HP, 8,500-RPM Billet V10 Is an ‘Engineer’s Dream’

Bemoaning the lack of high-revving gasoline engines? Have an endurance racing machine in desperate need of an 800-horsepower V10? Well, if you also have money burning a hole in your pocket, you may be the perfect customer for Noonan’s new 5.8-liter, 8,500-RPM endurance crate engine. And if your car happens to run a Lamborghini transmission, so much the better.

I’ve neither the money nor a suitable project for a bespoke, billet aluminum V10, but I’m a sucker for anything with 10 cylinders and a Lamborghini-based backstory. A Viper crate motor this is not, however—nor does it cribbed from any of Lamborghini’s actual engine designs. While the transmission bell housing may have been engineered to bolt up to a Lambo gearbox, there’s no Italian DNA in the engine design itself, Noonan’s Barry Pettit told Engine Builder.

Based in Spartanburg, SC, Noonan builds some pretty insane motors. While they’re best known for their lineup of Hemi engines, the shop occasionally dabbles in other OEMs, including Honda (check out this billet K24) and GM. The new 5.8-liter V10 hasn’t made their production catalog just yet (it was just shown at PRI in December), but from what we can see in this preview, it’s a wicked piece of machinery.

Like that K24, this V10 is a dramatic departure from the company’s typical overhead-valve V8 projects. It’s a dual-overhead cam, four-valve design with a fully water-jacketed head that includes, as Pettit put it, “everything that we’ve ever wanted to put in an engine.”

“We haven’t done many overhead-cam engines, you know? We’re pushrod guys,” he said. “We do blocks for Hondas and Lamborghinis and stuff like that, but developing a cylinder head to have cams and, you know, a bucket-style valvetrain, is different.”

The ideal customer for this build wants a “boutique,” high-horsepower, high-revving V10 and is looking to build race cars in relatively small (but not single-digit) volumes. If you’re looking to build 100 to 200 ten-cylinder endurance racing cars that can be run at 8,500 RPM all day long, you just may be in the market for this beast.

And there’s an even more badass spec in the works. Pettit says the team has an “all-out, light-weight” screamer reminiscent of “old F1 spec” engines. Please, Noonan, for all our sakes: Share some dyno clips of that monster.

Seen any other billet engines or a good car to put this in? Drop us a line at tips@thedrive.com

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