We are in the midst of a horsepower arms race. Just a decade ago, a 500-horsepower street engine was a big deal. But these days you can just write a check and drive any number of new cars right off the lot with that much power.

But a thousand horsepower? Now we’re getting somewhere!

Hitting four digits on the engine dyno is no easy task. But thanks to advancements in turbo and supercharger technology, many people can build a thousand-horsepower engine -- for a little bit. Usually, these engines are built for publicity so the builder can crow about the achievement on the ol’ internets. But the engines are so highly strung and pushed beyond their practical limits just to hit that number, that they won’t last very long in real-world conditions.

So when Holley and engine builder Prestige Motorsports in Concord, NC, began putting their heads together for their next engine giveaway and wanted to come up with something unique, it didn’t take long for somebody to throw out the possibility of a 1,000-plus horsepower engine.

Of course, nobody wants to give away an engine that’s a ticking time bomb. So priority number one was to make sure whatever engine they built, it is durable and capable of shrugging off abuse. And to make things even tougher, why don’t we make those four digits naturally aspirated in an engine that could be used on the street?

It was also about this same time that Chevrolet had unveiled its 632 cubic inch big block capable of making 1,004 horsepower. There are, however, a couple of drawbacks with Chevrolet’s big-inch big block. One, as we were writing this, production of the Chevrolet engine seems to be pretty limited and even if you wanted to shell out 30 grand for one, they are awfully hard to come by.

The guys at Prestige took that as a bit of a challenge. So the decision was made to build their own version of a 632 cubic inch big block with all aftermarket parts. The Chevrolet engine uses a brand-new, one-off cylinder head casting that’s based on a Pro Stock drag racing design and isn’t available anywhere else. Prestige will be using a set of conventional 18-degree big block heads from AFR that anyone can buy. But to make up for the power loss from not being able to use those Pro Stock heads with equal-length runners is the reason why the compression was bumped up to just over 13 to one and E85 fuel is used. It’s not pump gas, but it’s still viable as a street engine that can also ruin your competitor’s day at the race track.

But by using a Holley Terminator X for the ECU, Prestige found a huge advantage versus the Chevrolet engine. While Chevrolet’s ECU is locked out, all of Holley’s ECUs are not only easy to work with for tuning, but they are also fantastically adaptable. For example, Prestige tested this engine, burning race fuel and E85 right on the dyno with zero hardware changes. The Terminator X ECU handled all the fuel map changes itself.

So check out this behind-the-scenes look at this really cool giveaway build. In the end, Prestige not only hit the thousand-horsepower goal, they vastly exceeded it with 1,106 at a very usable 6,500 rpm. And while that peak horsepower number is certainly impressive, the locomotive levels of torque throughout the rpm range will blow your mind. From the beginning of the pull at 3,900 rpm all the way through 6,500, we never saw less than 780 ft/lbs of torque! Tires will be an endangered species in whatever vehicles this finally goes into!