Hennessey's Venom F5 engine bench tested at a furious 1,817 horsepower

It's only been live for a week, but we've already had to update our list of the world's most powerful cars, after Hennessey Performance surprised itself with an extreme dyno reading.

The Venom F5 is the car Hennessey hopes will demolish not only the fastest production car record now held by Bugatti, but also the 0-400-0 record recently reclaimed by Koenigsegg. With a long enough piece of road, there's every chance this wild machine could be the first to break 500 km/h (310.7 mph), which is the next nice round number to aim at since the Chiron hit 300 mph (483 km/h) last month. That's if Koenigsegg's Jesko doesn't get there first.

To claim the record, the Venom will need power. Lots and lots of power, to fight through the massive force of wind resistance you get at speeds more than four times faster than highway limits. Up until this morning, Hennessey was saying the Venom F5 would make some 1,600 horsepower, a truly staggering total and enough to place it equal fifth on our list of the most powerful production cars available, alongside the Jesko and the Chiron Super Sport 300+.

But the engine hadn't been dyno tested until now. And while 1,600 horses was the target, even John Hennessey himself appeared surprised with the bench test readout of 1,817 hp and 1,193 lb-ft (1,617.5 Nm) of torque.

“We exceeded our target horsepower number. Actually, we blew our target number out of the water by delivering over 1,800 horsepower,” said Hennessey. “The F5 engine has a very broad power band with over 1,000 lb-ft of torque available from 2,000 to 8,000 rpm. Give it the full throttle and it’s the most furious engine that we have ever built. Thus, we gave our F5 engine a special name: 'Fury.'”

Fury indeed. Check out the rage in action on the dyno below, and imagine that sound happening when you put your foot down in a lightweight, sub-3,000-lb (sub-1,361-kg) hypercar.

And how might you squeeze 1,800 hp out of a 6.6-liter, twin turbo V8, you might well ask? Well, Hennessey has seen fit to publish a detailed set of components and specifications, which we have reproduced in full below.

Hennessey Venom F5 V8 Engine Specifications:

• Power: 1,817 bhp @ 8,000 rpm
• Torque: 1,193 lb-ft @ 5,500 rpm
• Redline: 8,200 rpm
• Displacement 6.6 liter (400 CID)
• Bore: 4.125 in.
• Stroke: 3.750 in.
• Billet aluminum intake manifold with integrated air to water intercooler system
• Forged aluminum pistons (10.0:1 compression ratio) with steel extreme duty wrist pins
• Forged steel light weight H-bean connecting rods
• Extreme duty forged steel connecting rod bolts
• Light weight extreme duty billet steel crankshaft
• Forged steel V8 engine block with billet main caps, increased cylinder wall & deck thickness & 6 bolts per cylinder
• High-flow aluminum cylinder heads with canted titanium intake valves
• Inconel exhaust valves with dual valve springs
• Extreme duty billet steel hydraulic roller camshaft
• Extreme duty hydraulic roller lifters
• Extreme duty billet steel pushrods
• Extreme duty stainless steel shaft mounted rocker arms
• Dailey Engineering 4 Stage billet dry sump oiling system
• Dailey Engineering Billet CNC aluminum oil pan
• Precision ball bearing twin turbochargers (76 mm billet aluminum compressor wheels) rated at 1,350 bhp per turbo, making 23 psi boost pressure at 1,817 bhp
• 3D printed titanium turbo compressor housings
• High-flow twin turbo wastegates
• High-flow twin turbo blow-off valves
• High-flow billet aluminum 90 mm dual throttle bodies
• High-flow fuel injectors, 2 per cylinder
• High-flow stainless steel twin turbo headers with 1 7/8 in. primary tubes
• High-flow stainless steel 3.0 in. twin turbo downpipes
• High-flow catalytic converters
• High-flow 3.5 titanium exhaust system

Source: Hennessey Performance