🏁 Haltech Horsepower Heroes 2025 - Summernats 37 | TRACKSIDE

Summonats, the annual event where lovers of V8s, blowers and burnouts take over Canberra, Australia's capital city, to celebrate all things automotive muscle. And we're here to bring you the highlights of one of the most popular parts of the event, the Haltech Horsepower Heroes dyno competition, where horsepower heads come from all corners of Australia to try and cement their place in Summonat's history. G'day, Richo here in the MPW Performance dyno cell for the Haltech Horsepower Heroes at Summonats 37. Today is the final day. We have seen some huge horsepower cars here on the dyno. Are we going to see more? Come on, let's check it out. The rules for Haltech Horsepower Heroes are pretty simple. There are four classes, naturally aspirated six-cylinder, naturally aspirated eight-cylinder, boosted six-cylinder and boosted eight-cylinder. Any Summonats entrance can sign up to make a qualifying pull on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Each entrant has three dyno pulls to achieve their highest horsepower figure and the top three cars from each class are then invited back for the Sunday finals. But on the Sunday, the slate is wiped clean and only the power runs recorded on that day are eligible to take out the win. And starting with the naturally aspirated six-cylinder class, that win went to Wes with his mighty AU Falcon. So Wes, the AU Falcon, the mighty AU, is arguably the internet's favourite Falcon of all time. Tell us a little bit about yours. It's an ex-saloon car, AU Series 1, running Intec. It's fairly standard. Control pistons, control head, control ECU. They all make similar power and yeah, just for what it is, it just goes well. What power did you end up making? You won the naturally aspirated six-cylinder class, 245 horsepower. Yeah, which is pretty good. That's awesome. Yeah. So what's next for the car? Just keep circuit racing. Yeah, basically keep it reliable and race it, use it for what it's for. Awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. Not everyone who enters the Horsepower Heroes is guaranteed a win, but there's more than one way to write your name into the Summonat's history books. Scotty from Street Machines Carnage Show, mate, you've done something that we don't think anyone else has done before here this weekend. Yeah, we thought we'd do something a bit different. I mean, for me, this is very special being here in the finals, but our aim for this weekend was to drive up here. So we drove from Melbourne to Canberra with our ute that's done drag challenge, so it's capable. We knew it was capable, but the idea was to drive to Summonat, make over 1,000 horsepower at the tyres, drive home. Well, not only did we do that, we did 1,000 kilowatts at the tyres. So, man, I'm not saying no one has ever done that before, but if there is, you could count them on one hand, you know? How far is it from Melbourne to Canberra? Melbourne to Canberra, or from our workshop, we worked out 680km there about, so it's a reasonable distance. Plus, we didn't bring a trailer with us at all, so we're driving it around all Canberra this weekend. We're staying off-site, so we drive out to accommodation every day, drive back in, doing laps. So we're driving this thing everywhere, you know? So it's an amazing streetcar. Yeah, so it's a true megawatt streetcar. That's right, and we drove it up through 36-degree temperatures, right? It was stinking hot. I must admit, I put a little Bunnings water sprayer system on. I've got a Bunnings pump and a 25-litre drum, and we're spraying water on the radiator and, you know, just with all control via the Haltech. So we've got the Nexus ECU, so it's powered off the ADM circuit of the Nexus ECU, controlled by the CAN keypad. So I just push the button on the CAN keypad as I need water. It's been brilliant. It's fantastic. Haltech, man. It's the way to go. The next class winner to hit the dyno was Bilal's FG Falcon, taking the trophy for boosted six-cylinder. Bilal, come over here, mate. So, boosted six-cylinder class winner, over 1600 horsepower. You must be pretty chuffed. Oh, yeah, for sure, man. That was good power. Tell us a bit about the big barra. So it's a 4.3-litre stroker, turbo 400. Apart from that, pretty basic setup. Everything else, pretty much arms, all that, remain factory. Some chocolate spoil-overs, and yeah, CK tuned it all and done his magic. Tuned it all on the Haltech Elite Pro plug-in? Yeah, the best computer, honestly. I can't fault that at all. It's been good since we've had it at the start. Yeah, it's been impressive. Awesome. So what's next for the car? Hopefully get it back on the track, go run some more numbers, go faster, bring it back next year, and we'll get the record again. Awesome. Congratulations. Thanks, brother. The naturally aspirated eight-cylinder class was won by Eden with his earth-shaking Holden HK Monaro. Well, Eden, the plate says tough guy, and I reckon you've proved that. How do you make 1,000 horsepower from an NA engine? Is it just all cubed and compression, or is there another trick to it? It's all modern technology, modern heads. They're like old-school, but modern. A lot of R&R in the manifold, air, fuel, lightweight oil, lightweight, even dip coils lightweight, everything as light as possible. Yeah, right. So it's kind of old school with some new school technology and engine building going in. How many cubes is it? 632. Right. And what's next? Are you coming back next year, do you reckon, to drive again? If I put a top loader in there, I'll probably get more, but we'll see who comes close. All right. Well done, mate. Thank you. For years, Adam and the team from MPW in Melbourne have been coming to Canberra to make sure the horsepower hero's dono runs like clockwork. Adam from MPW, you're back here running the dono again for us this year. Thank you very much. What's been the highlight of the weekend for you? There's been heaps this year, to be honest with you. We've had the first almost 1,100 horsepower NA car since I've been doing it, and we've been doing it a long time. We've had the first Godzilla at Summonats, and it's gone 1,700 horsepower. Haltech Elite 2,500 controlled. We've had over 2,000 horsepower from an LS on E85. We've had done over 100 cars on the dono this year. It's been a massive year for us. And I believe, I think Dave Carter was telling me before, in the history of horsepower heroes, there's only been about 40 cars that have cracked 1,000 horsepower, and we've had nearly 20 of them here this weekend. Yeah, nearly every Barra that we've put on has gone over 1,000 or close to 1,000. All of the top three Barras are all running a Haltech plug-and-play, so it just shows how diverse that unit is as well. And I think that's a big reason why things have stepped up with that platform, because in the previous years, we used to get them making 700 kilowatts, 600, 500 kilowatts. They're all making over 1,000 kilowatts now. We had three in the finals doing over 1,000 kilowatts. Well, again, thank you for running the dyno for us. It's always great to see you, and we'll be back next year, sure. And guys, thanks for you guys sponsoring this event, because without you guys, this wouldn't be possible, and we really enjoy doing this every year. The last competitor to run up the hub dyno, but certainly not the least, was Lee with his twin-turbo LS-powered VL Commodore, taking out the boosted eight-cylinder class and overall Haltech Horsepower Hero for 2025. Lee, you're the Horsepower Hero for this year. You must be happy with it. Oh, mate, absolutely stoked. So tell us a bit about the car. Obviously, VL, you've made 2,000 horsepower, the only car here this weekend to make 2,000 horsepower. Yeah. Yeah, so more speed, 427 cube, dart block in it, Higgins heads, velocity intake, velocity dry sump. Obviously, lots of fab work from Spot-On in Brisbane. M&M turbo 400, sheet metal nine-inch, normal radial-style rear end from the boys at Spot-On. Yeah. And you didn't build it to win Horsepower Heroes. You actually do drive it quite a bit, don't you? Yeah. Obviously, it is a streeter, but yeah, we majority race the car. We do all the Kendas, Jamborees, all that sort of stuff, yeah. Well, Matt, do you think you'll be back next year? Well, if this other car is ready that we're building, yes, we will be. Awesome. We look forward to see it. Thanks, mate. Cheers. Well, that's a wrap from the Haltech Horsepower Heroes for another year. It's been one of the biggest ever. We've had more 1,000 horsepower cars than ever before. We've had a 2,000 horsepower car win. What's going to happen next year? Well, we'll just have to wait and see. My name's Richo. Hope to see you later.