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1963 VW Bus Is Powered By A 600+HP Big Block Chevy V8: Video

The stereotypical VW bus owner can be labeled as what some might call a hippie. Someone who covers the van in flowers, and hums along the roadway in as peaceful a fashion as possible. But this ain’t another flower bus. It’s actually on the opposite end of the spectrum.

The owner, Mike, swapped in a 468-cubic inch Chevy big block V8 that was pulled from, here’s the kicker, a boat. This big, bad V8 makes 587 hp at the crank, and, on top of that, is fed a 150-shot of nitrous. The V8 is matted to a Turbo 400 automatic transmission with a 200 gear ratio. It might take away from acceleration, but it allows this bus to keep up with a Corvette traveling 167 mph on the freeway (so he says). Altogether, this thing runs a 12.20 quarter-mile.

And it’s not just impressive performance, no, this masterpiece is actually Mike’s daily driver. Mike used an Astro van front end so that he would have power steering and other accessories. And when it comes to maintenance, well, Mike says it takes him about 22 minutes to pull the transmission out and about 2 hours to pull the motor. It could be that easy, or Mike could be a wizard mechanic. After all, he did complete the entire build in just six weeks.

A car-loving millennial. We Are!

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