Image via ScrapLife Garage/YouTube
The Hellcat engine has become a popular swap option for people who want to build something crazy. We’ve seen a lot of Mopar projects using the Hellcat, plus some GM and Ford cars for a sacrilegious result, but we’ve seen few Japanese performance cars getting the big supercharged V8 shoehorned in.
See what a classic Rolls-Royce with a Hellcat is like.
There have been a few, just not nearly as many, and probably part of the reason is the sheer weight and size of the mill. Those are some of the challenges ScrapLife Garage faced when the boys decided to drop a Hellcat in one of their Nissan 350Zs.
Such an ambitious project was either doomed to fail or would be a monumental achievement. They had to figure out how to fit the engine into the much smaller Fairlady’s front end, which they eventually did thanks in part to a Sawzall.
With everything installed and running, another big hurdle, they threw the Frankenstein car onto the dyno and found power was about half what it should be to the wheels. Tweaking things, including tire pressure, helped fix that, resulting in 625-whp and 613 lb.-ft. of torqure – not too shabby considering.
But then the car suffered two failures on the way home. One of the axles gave up the ghost thanks to the rear differential trying to make a violent exit, the exhaust system taking one for the team and keeping it from slamming onto the pavement.
Innovative engine swaps and other such builds involve a process of progressive failures. After all, you’re pushing the envelope while also forging into unexplored territory. There’s no real guide for doing a Hellcat engine swap into a Nissan 350Z.
The payoff for taking on a project like this is having something unlike what you see on the road or at meets. Plus if you have a YouTube channel like these guys, you can document the process and entertain thousands.
Watching the Z roast tires with that supercharger whine in the end sure is fun. We bet driving this build is infinitely more thrilling, too.
Image via ScrapLife Garage/YouTube
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