2010 Hennessey HPE700 LS9 Camaro First Drive and Video

It's the most obvious combination since the invention of the word "duh." Throw the supercharged, 6.2-liter LS9 V8 from the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 into the nose of a 2010 Camaro. Anyone with the automotive knowledge of a beagle's butt has had this idea ricocheting through his mind since the debut of the ZR1 and the new Camaro. But it's John Hennessey and his crew at Hennessey Performance Engineering in Houston who did it first. And as you'd expect, the 2010 Hennessey HPE700 LS9 Chevy Camaro is a full-on Vikings-and-Mongols epic.

The 2010 Hennessey HPE700 LS9 Camaro isn't just quick and fast; it warps reality. Stay on the throttle long enough and you'll develop tunnel vision as the speed builds. Suddenly it's like you're going through the time travel sequence in a Star Trek movie. Before you know it, you've sped through the Bronze Age, Ancient Rome, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. And you're coming up quick on the same telephone pole on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu that cracked a Ferrari Enzo in two a couple of years ago.

This is automotive entertainment on a psychedelic scale.

Duh.

Simple Idea, Not-So-Simple Execution
While Inside Line did put the HPE700 on MD Automotive's chassis dynamometer, we didn't have the car long enough to fully test it. But every indication from our drive is that it's the best-running, most complete and best-looking car that Hennessey has ever turned out. Hennessey Performance Engineering is only building 24 HPE700s and, as this is written, has sold all but two of them.

You know, you can go to any dealer for GM Performance Parts, fork over $23,100 (plus tax) and you'll be the owner of a new, supercharged LS9 V8. According to Paradise Chevrolet in Ventura, California, it only takes about a week for the new engine to arrive in a big crate and it's ready to drop into anything you want. (Surely there's already someone out there perversely planning to put one into a Chevette, Vega or Toro rear-bagger.)

The LS9 certainly looks absolutely at home in the bay of a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS. The actual dimensions of the LS-series engine block don't change much, no matter which particular configuration the engine might be in, so the LS9 bolts into the Camaro SS using the stock motor mounts that usually batten down the stock SS's LS3. This part, at least, is easy.

This isn't a car for beginners; it's hard-core performance for the veteran thrill-seeker.

But the supercharged LS9 uses a different oiling system than other LS engines, has an intercooler that needs plumbing and drives its accessories differently. Beyond that, Hennessey had to fabricate its own rear bell housing to mate the monster motor with the Camaro's otherwise untouched Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission. With the LS9's oil sump tank tucked in just behind the front grille, the intercooler heat exchanger just forward of the radiator and the accessory drive system tweaked to clear everything, the LS9 installation looks completely stock apart from the Hennessey-fabricated air intake with open element filter. Meanwhile, Hennessey uses its own long-tube stainless-steel headers and a pair of high-flow catalytic converters to send the LS9's waste gases into the atmosphere, although the stock Camaro SS mufflers and exhaust tips remain intact.

Hennessey being Hennessey, the LS9 in the HPE700 isn't as stock as it appears. Besides the "Powered by Hennessey" stickers on the standard ZR1 engine cover, Hennessey has changed the supercharger pulleys so that the supercharger spins faster than stock and pushes with about 15 psi of boost instead of the factory-specification 10.5 psi. To support the extra squeeze, high-capacity fuel injectors are fitted and the fuel system has a more powerful pump. The fuel lines and fuel rails are the same, but this car can empty its tank at a staggering rate. What? You thought this car was going to be a fuel sipper?

Unfortunately (at least in this one respect) the LS9 sits lower in the Camaro's engine bay than it does in the Corvette. Putting a ZR1-ish plastic window on the hood to show the engine just wouldn't work. Drat.

A Monster in Prada
Mad science doesn't necessarily involve a lab coat and an ill-fitting, off-the-rack cardigan sweater. So it turns out that the monster Hennessey HPE700 is one of the best-looking examples of the 2010 Camaro we've yet gazed upon. It's Frankenstein in Armani or King Kong in a well-tailored Ermenegildo Zegna two-button, two-vent Trofeo suit.

After the nauseating parade of over-decorated, circus-colored Camaro showcars at this year's SEMA extravaganza, Hennessey's choice of Chevy's standard Cyber Gray Metallic for its first HPE700 is refreshing. The Camaro is such an inherently extreme design that it pays big to go conservative on the paint; the radical lines don't seem so cartoonish covered in this sophisticated gunmetal hue as they do in Inferno Orange Metallic or Victory Red. And Hennessey has deftly accentuated the factory paint with a painted hockey-stick stripe in blue that perfectly matches the Brembo brake calipers.

Throw in a slight drop in ride height, multispoke 20-inch wheels wrapped in wide Michelin Pilot Sport tires, carbon-fiber body pieces from CarbonAero plus a carbon-fiber spoiler on the rear deck and the result is a machine that looks muscular and aggressive, yet sophisticated. Of course, this being a tuner car, Hennessey will paint it up like a Bazooka Joe bubble-gum comic if you bring enough cash. But restraint is the way to go, we think.

Hennessey's redecoration continues inside the cabin, where the Camaro's standard Playskool-spec plastic dash and door panels have been replaced with faux carbon-fiber pieces that look indistinguishable from real carbon fiber. Carbon fiber can seem jokey and pretentious in some cars, but it fits into the Camaro perfectly. Wrapping the stock Camaro steering wheel in artificial suede and fitting a more ergonomic knob on the shift lever are also effective modifications. Of course there's a plaque aboard celebrating the car's birth at Hennessey, while the floor mats and headrests have Hennessey logos embroidered into them. Whoopee!

The Sound of Power
The supercharged LS9 engine develops so much more exhaust pressure than the Camaro SS's standard LS3 that it simply overwhelms the Camaro's stock mufflers. On the dynamometer at MD Automotive, the HPE700 was spectacularly loud; you could see the toolboxes rattling from the hypersonic onslaught three work bays down. So powerful was the sound that someone suggested using the engine as a wood chipper. You know, feed some old tree limbs into the intake and then sawdust would spit out the exhaust.

It's such a powerful sound that it could be used as a foreign policy tool. If we drove this thing at full throttle across Iran, the mullahs would surely be intimidated into giving up their nuclear weapons program.

On the rollers of the dyno the HPE700 Camaro peaks at 691 horsepower — fully 53 hp more at the rear wheels than what Chevrolet rates the ZR1's LS9 at the crankshaft. If you figure a 15 percent parasitic loss in the HPE700's drivetrain between the engine and the rear wheels, that's 813 hp at the HPE700's crank. Factor in a 10 percent loss and the output number drops to a mere 768 hp. Meanwhile, the dyno rating of 661 pound-feet of torque at the wheels is enough raw heave to drag Minneapolis down the Mississippi River and park it atop New Orleans. This car is unfathomably powerful.

Street-Friendly Devil Dog
This makes it all the more surprising that the 2010 Hennessey HPE700 has such a benign personality when you drive it. At part-throttle, the LS9 burbles along like the Ecotec four-cylinder in a Cobalt sedan — perfectly behaved and relatively quiet. All the clutch engagement is in the last quarter-inch of pedal travel, but acclimating to this poses only a brief challenge. Stay light on the throttle and the HPE700 is a well-behaved puppy.

But slam down the throttle and that puppy turns into a snarling Cerberus rushing headlong through the gates of Hell. The wide 305mm treads of these expensive rear Michelins will vaporize long before you have run out of throttle travel. The sensation of speed is so great that it feels as if the steering wheel is being pulled from your hands, leaving suede imprints on your fingers. And yet the structure and suspension of the Camaro take the power with grace and dignity; there's no clatter from the drivetrain and the rear tires stay square to the road without chattering.

The Michelin Pilot Sport tires are among the world's best, and such rubber helps with steering feel and adhesion through the corners. But this much power is simply overwhelming. At full throttle, your primary task is to keep steering and counter the way the rear end swings back and forth. Dive into a corner and there might be some initial understeer, but oversteer is always just a quarter-inch of throttle travel away. This isn't a car for beginners; it's hard-core performance for the veteran thrill-seeker.

Fortunately Hennessey has fit the HPE700 with big eight-piston front Brembo brakes plus six-pot calipers in the rear. Since this car should run well past 200 mph given a long enough stretch of unpatrolled road, the challenge of burning off the speed is as great as that of building it.

How quick is this car? Well, our test of the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 measured the Vette running zero to 60 mph from a standstill in just 3.8 seconds (3.5 seconds with 1 foot of rollout like on a drag strip). Sure the HPE700 is heavier than the ZR1, but it's also more powerful. So let's guesstimate this HPE700 thundering to 60 mph from a standstill in 3.6 seconds (3.3 seconds with 1 foot of rollout), with the quarter-mile blazing past in 11.4 seconds at 126 mph. Your guesses may vary, but our guesses feel pretty solid.

The Big End on the Bottom Line
Call Hennessey right now to snag one of the two available examples of the 2010 Hennessey HPE700 Chevy Camaro (operators are standing by!) and you'll have to write John Hennessey a check for $119,500 plus tax and license. This is not cheap, and it's a lot of money for a Camaro, but it's not stupidly expensive compared to the few vehicles that come close to the HPE700's performance.

If you want even more power from your Camaro conversion, Hennessey will rip the LS9's supercharger off and replace it with twin turbos. He tells us that the engine then should be good for 850 or 1,000 hp. And he backs all his stuff with a three-year warranty (really).

Plus, while Camaros go well with any hairstyle (this joke was inevitable), Lamborghinis and mullets just don't mix.

Duh.