A Chevrolet-powered streamliner set a new piston-powered land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah last week.
George Poteet and his Speed Demon 715 posted a two-way average of 470.015 mph at the SCTA Bonneville Speed Week 2020, setting a land-speed record for a piston-driven ground vehicle. The 71-year old Poteet also set a top speed of 481.576 mph in the last mile, which is the fastest a piston-powered, wheel-driven ground vehicle has ever gone.
Speed Demon 715 beat the previous record held by Danny Thompson, son of Mickey Thompson, who set a two-way average of 448.757 mph at Bonneville in his AA/FS streamliner back in 2018. Thompson’s car was powered by a pair of naturally aspirated second-generation HEMI V8s running on nitromethane.
While Thompson set the record with HEMI power, Speed Demon 715 is powered by a methanol-fueled 557 cubic inch Chevrolet Big Block with two 88mm Precision turbochargers. The turbos are capable of making up to 35 psi of boost and help produce a massive 3,156 horsepower and 2,106 pound-feet of torque. The engine was built by Ken Duttweiler, who also serves as Poteet’s crew chief on the Speed Demon 715 program.
Poteet had set 400+ mph runs on the salt in Speed Demon 715 before, but this year his crew and him managed to get everything set up just right to break the record. He started racing at Bonneville back in 2006 and prior to building Speed Demon raced a GM EcoTec-powered racer called the Eco Fire.
Check out the video embedded below for a quick amateur video of the Speed Demon 715 making its 481 mph pass. It’s crazy to think that a piston-powered vehicle is closing in on the 500 mph mark, but that just goes to show how far Chevrolet V8 power (and a couple of turbochargers) can take you.
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Comments
So was it powered by 2 hemis or a big block Chevy motor? The article says both, how is that??
The previous guy had the hemi current is big block
Mike the previous owner of the speed record had the hemi the current one is the big block
George’s car was running the Chevy big block. Danny’s car had the two hemi’s
Wow, that is fast:-)
Of course it has Chevy power! Hemi’s are busy flying off the lots in FCA land! They do not have time for a crate sells when the customer wants their muscle cars haha!
Seriously though that is super fast! 260 km/h on the autobahn feels nice! I can only imagine what 400mph feels like!
It was a 555ci big block. Kenny Duttweiler is the engine builder. Steve “Biggie” Maxwell is the car builder and the crew chief.
Thats awesome
Where this car was faster was more due to size and weight.
The Thompson car was an old car Mickey build with Ford in the 60’s. It was a twin engine AWD model as back then it took two engines to make that kind of power,
Mickeys son Danny took it and redid the car with two Hemi engines to drive the AWD, I would say if her had built the car new he would have only used one engine and RWD,
The smaller car is lighter and took much less power to drive the drive train and was a much more efficient car,
When Mickey first started building LSR cars he was using 4 production supercharged Pontiac engines with AWD because that is the only way to make enough power back then unless you used an Aviation engine like Arfons,
This car here is really a very advanced design and well done project. It really shows how far things have come.
There is probably very little GM to that big block and It’s only a matter of time before a Ford Or Chrysler enthusiast builds a Bonneville car and they will hold the record for awhile. Besides the Thompson car that ran in 2018 was built in the 60s, twice as heavy and less aerodynamic I would hope modern tech and aero goes faster than a 60s build. So Chevy BOYS go ahead and brag on other people’s accomplishments
or about your junkyard LS build in your Foxbody. When you go down the track no one cares what engine you are running all the spectators see is another Ford Mustang blasting down the track!