Mercury Racing’s New 750-HP Corvette-Based Crate Engine Is One Mean, Green Machine

Green in the literal sense, not so much in the eco-friendly way.

byWill Sabel Courtney|
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With its 505 horsepower, 470 pound-feet of torque, and 7,100 rpm redline, the 7.0-liter naturally-aspirated hunk of all-American iron known as the LS7 smallblock V8 found beneath the hood of the C6-generation Chevy Corvette Z06 and the last-gen Camaro Z/28 may seem like the sort of engine that needs little in the way of improvement. 

Thankfully, nobody at Mercury Racing seems to have realized that. Because the company—an offshoot of the boat engine manufacturer—decided to base its latest crate engine on the venerable LS7. By ripping out everything down to the block and rebuilding it as a dual overhead cam wonder, Mercury Racing managed to pull a stunning 750 horsepower out of the 7.0-liter engine now known as the SB4, while lifting the redline to a stunning 8,000 rpm. 

Of course, those are the sort of claims that are easy to make. But if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the 750-horsepower smallblock is in the testing—which is why we headed out to the cheese curd-strewn farmlands of Wisconsin to check out this engine for ourselves. Mercury Racing program manager Jason Pugh was kind enough to walk us through what makes this motor tick on video.

Oh, and stay tuned. We'll have plenty more videos to come out of this particular trip to Wisconsin. We didn't fly halfway across the country just to look at an engine, after all. 

Note: This video originally aired live on Facebook, where we frequently broadcast live videos showing off the cool stuff we're doing and interact with our viewers. If you don't follow us on Facebook yet, you totally should—so click here to do so

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