7 Of The Most Powerful 8-Cylinder Engines Ever Made

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In the world of combustion engines, there's a cylinder count for everyone. Four-cylinder engines are among the most common on the road today, usually set inline or flat, and often turbocharged to help with efficiency and make up for the power loss from the low cylinder count. Occasionally, you may see or hear a quirky five-cylinder, likely from an Audi, although you're more likely to come across a six-cylinder of some sort. Keep going and you'll find the 10- and 12-cylinder engines of the world, often nestled into the center of high-performance supercars, or resting in the front of an executive sedan. You can even get your hands on a 16-cylinder engine from somewhere like Bugatti, if you've got the desire and the cash.

This range is vast, and right in the middle, you'll find eight-cylinder engines. Although they occasionally appear in flat or inline configurations, the vast majority are a part of the V family. The philosophy of the V8 is one that seems to know no bounds, spanning across oceans and continents. American, German, Italian, and Japanese brands alike all produce their own versions of the V8, each with its own flavor of style and abilities. One overarching theme, though, is high power. Wherever you come from, the V8 is associated with high performance.

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Every so often, the Italian wizards at Maranello decide that one of their already impressive creations simply isn't enough. They usually conclude that the solution is to mess around with aero bits, add a new suffix like "Speciale" or "Competizione" and then inject the engine with mechanical steroids. One example of this phenomenon is the Ferrari 488 Pista, with that last word meaning "track" in Italian. It's a fitting name, as the Pista is one of the fastest production cars to lap the Nürburgring. But how does it do it?

Rather than working with the base 488's engine, the Pista's version is derived from the 488 Challenge, the track-only racecar version of the roadgoing 488. Ferrari completely redesigned the exhaust manifolds and built them with Inconel alloy, a hardy and heat-resistant material, a change that alone sheds 21 pounds. This trend of redesigning components and using new materials extends throughout the internals, such as the connecting rods and crankshaft, all of which come together for a 40-pound loss. 

While the turbos themselves are untouched, the compression ratio is bumped from 9.4:1 to 9.6, and a new set of speed sensors allows the car to safely spin the turbos to their absolute limits, increasing boost to 21.6 PSI. All this turbo tech includes a boost management system that can bank and optimally distribute boost in partial-throttle situations. In total, this 3.9-liter V8 makes 710 horsepower.

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The coin of the V8 has two sides that represent different philosophies. Ferrari's F154CD represents the exotic, turbocharged flavor of V8 whose inherent chaos is somewhat tamed to attack racetracks with cold calculation. The other side leans into that rambunctious nature of the V8, and there is arguably no better representative for this school of thought than the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500's Predator engine. Just as the GT500 is just the GT350 but more, the Predator is based on the GT350's "Voodoo" V8, but more. As is tradition with an American V8, displacement is huge — 5.2 liters in the case of the Predator, which is hand-built.

The biggest change from the Voodoo, and the defining characteristic of the Predator, is its forced induction. Nestled between the engine's cylinder banks is a massive 2.6-liter Eaton supercharger, running with 12 PSI of boost. To handle all this, the internals in every nook and cranny have been strengthened. Ford also traded the GT350's more exotic flat-plane crank for a cross-plane crank. This helps reduce engine vibration, but more importantly, it is pony-car purity in the sound department, producing the kind of guttural, bellowing growl that reverberates in the ribcage as much as it does in the ear. Redlining at 7,500 rpm, this bodybuilder of an engine produces 760 wild American horses and solidifies the GT500 as an icon of the modern muscle car.

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The McLaren P1 makes up one third of the hypercar holy trinity, and since it was unveiled in 2013, it has been hard to imagine how McLaren would approach a successor. In October 2024, the W1 hypercar debuted with one of the wildest wings ever, and answered some questions. Like the P1, it boasts a powerful hybrid powertrain, but its combustion engine is magnificent on its own. To put the capabilities of this engine – designated MHP-8 by McLaren – into perspective, we can compare it to the Senna GTR's M840T, McLaren's next most powerful engine.

The numbers show that the MHP-8 produces 102 horsepower more and is 22 pounds lighter than the M840T. That weight loss seems counterintuitive since the MHP-8's fuel injection systems are larger, as are turbochargers and exhaust runners. However, the engine block itself is smaller, and the electric components of the powertrain take over the duties of the alternator and starter motor, eliminating the need for those parts completely. 

Mounted outside the engine's valley, the pair of twin-scroll turbos moderate and stagger exhaust pulses, which heavily reduces turbo lag and makes for a more linear powerband. McLaren also tuned them to provide boost at low revs, making sure their benefits are not exclusive to the peak of the rev range. The automaker adjusted the position of the camshaft chain drives, among other things, to orchestrate an enjoyable exhaust note. Without the electric motors, the MHP-8 makes a staggering 916 horsepower.

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If there is any car that can compete with the GT500 as the poster child of today's muscle cars, it has to be the Dodge Demon 170, with its legendary Hellcat engine. The story of the Hellcat engine is the stuff of dreams for muscle car lovers. When it was introduced in 2015, the Hellcat made 707 horsepower, and in the subsequent years, Dodge just kept adding potency. The Hellcat line has always been about missile-like, straight-line speed, and when the first Demon came out in 2018, it seemed like Dodge had gone as far as it could go.

The Demon's engine has a nearly unquenchable thirst for air, which Dodge feeds with a massive hood scoop and hollow eye-socket intakes within the headlights, with the extra air consumption alone adding 17 horsepower. On top of that, the Demon's A/C unit is recruited to cool air before it's consumed by the engine, whose supercharger's boost is increased to 14.5 PSI and whose redline is bumped to 6,500 rpm. On racing fuel, the Demon made 840 horsepower, and its one-year production run was so successful that Dodge gave it another go with the Demon 170. The 170 beefed up internals to handle more power. Then, Dodge slammed a bigger, 3-liter supercharger on top with 21.3 PSI of boost. Running on E85, the Demon 170 makes a whopping 1,025 horsepower.

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When the C8 generation of the Corvette debuted, some felt that it had strayed too far from its roots, with the mid-engined layout in the vein of European exotics. But regardless of your feelings toward this evolution, there's one thing the C8 Corvette leans heavily into: the muscle. As you climb the food chain of C8 editions and trim levels, you'll come across the ZR1, which set Car and Driver's new lighting lap record. The heart of that ZR1 is the 5.5-liter, twin-turbocharged V8 — the most powerful internal combustion engine Chevrolet has ever made.

Rather than an enhanced version of the LT6, the LT7 was developed at the same time, allowing engineers to structure it for forced induction from the beginning. This is the first factory turbocharged engine in a Corvette, featuring a pair of mono-scroll turbos that put out 20 PSI of boost. The aluminum cylinder heads and engine block keep weight down, and the flat-plane crank is made of forged steel to handle the immense power. It's got brains, though, featuring a factory anti-lag system. All this cleverness means 800 lb-ft of the LT7's total 828 lb-ft of torque is available at 3,000 rpm. The C8 generation adds brains to the Corvette's hereditary brawn, and the LT7 exemplifies this philosophy perfectly, putting out a massive 1,064 horsepower.

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Every few years, Christian von Koenigsegg and his team of engineering wizards come out of their Ängelholm lair with a car whose abilities seem impossible. 2019 marked one of these instances, with the release of the Agera's successor, the Jesko, which can be had in an aero-packed track version or as the top-speed-focused Jesko Absolut that ditches the giant spoiler.

Made of aluminum, the Jesko's 5-liter twin-turbo V8 is a masterwork of automotive engineering. As is the norm with exotic V8s, the Jesko is built with a flat-plane crank, which produces a wonderful sound and helps balance energy across the cylinder banks. Supplementing the engine's sonic abilities, Koenigsegg's LST transmission eliminates the need for a flywheel, allowing the engine to hit its 8,500 redline from idle in just 0.2 seconds. Much of the power comes thanks to a pair of ceramic ball bearing turbos. 

On pump gas, they already produce a massive 24.7 PSI of boost, and on E85 they can make an astonishing 31.9 PSI. As if that weren't impressive enough, Koenigsegg has practically eliminated turbo-lag, thanks to an in-house turbo response system. This clever workaround works by banking air into an auxiliary tank, which pressurizes air to 290 PSI, which can then be shot into the turbos to spool them almost instantly. This helps the Jesko's V8 produce 1,281 horsepower on pump gas, and 1,600 horses on E85.

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There are few things more purely American in this world than Texas-based tuning company Hennessey. Much of its portfolio consists of heavily modified muscle cars and trucks, but the crown jewels have always been in its bespoke, face-ripping road missiles like the Venom GT and its successor, the Venom F5. 

The Venom F5's engine, called "Fury" by its creators, uses a pushrod architecture, with the camshaft nestled into the cast-iron engine block, allowing for a more compact package. That cast-iron block may seem brutish, but the Fury is packed full of cutting-edge tech and materials. Inconel exhaust valves handle the searing exhaust temperatures with ease, and the pair of turbos, which push 23 PSI, are housed in 3D-printed titanium casings. All told, the Fury redlines at 8,200 rpm, and puts out 1,817 horsepower.

For us regular folk who value self-preservation to some extent, 1,817 horses seems like more than enough. However, in a demonstration of the F5's customer base mindset, Hennessey found itself with requests for even more power, and thus the Evolution package was born. Hennessey called on British company Ilmor Engineering to squeeze every last drop of power from the already obscene 6.6-liter V8. Upgrades included an enormous pair of larger turbos, new oval-shaped pistons, higher-flow fuel injectors, and more. Once fed E85 fuel, these upgrades help the Fury produce a mind-bending 2,031 horsepower.