How Much Boost is Too Much? This Guy Finds Out The Hard Way!

This is one of the most insane engine explosions you will ever see, I can guarantee that! Maybe not the actual explosion itself, which is big but certainly not extraordinarily large. But the carnage left behind after the explosion is easily some of the most complete engine destruction we have ever seen!

It’s a shame to see a car as cool as this Holden Commodore Wagon lose its powerplant, but at least it did so in pretty spectacular fashion, giving us quite the show as it took it’s last breath around the 40’ mark of this Australian drag strip. As we dive into the details of the build, however, it becomes pretty clear why the bottom end gave up the ghost. The engine was pretty much stock, at least as far as the bottom end goes. Trying to cram enough boost into a 355” bottom end with little more than a stroker crank to give it a little more displacement. The pistons are still forged cast iron slugs that came from the factory, so the fact that this engine survived at anywhere near the 1,200 estimated wheel horsepower is somewhat of a miracle on it own.

The block is a factory two-bolt piece and when the car’s owner, Andrew Darby, tightens the screws on the wastegate just a little more to crank the boost even higher, the block itself decides to express it’s unhappiness by cracking from the front nearly all the way to the back.

And this isn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill cracked block, this is “look inside and see rods and the crankshaft itself peeking back at you through the gaping wound in the side of the engine. Of course, in true gearhead style, we fully expect to see Andrew with the wagon back up and running, perhaps this time with a little beefier bottom end that can handle a little more boost!