Let’s say you’re an engine builder and you get a phone call from a customer in Australia looking for 600 horsepower from a pump gas engine. Simple task, right? Pick out a big block Chevy, put some honkin’ heads on it, and go. The task becomes more challenging when the customer limits the engine builder to one engine platform, and in the case of this badass bullet from Tin Indian Performance, that’s a Pontiac engine – which is TIP’s specialty. In fact, Pontiac performance is the only thing TIP does, and company founder Kevin Swaney believes in doing it right.

The bullet on the dyno. Check out those sweet Billet-Tek valve covers. These are actually castings that TIP fully machines and finishes with the company logo.

“This customer, Steven Galea, wanted a 600-horsepower pump gas engine,” states Swaney.

The parts selection is critical in this application. The engine is based around an aluminum Kauffman Performance MR-1A block, with a set of Kauffman Racing Equipment‘s 80cc High Port cylinder heads on top.

The MR-1A aluminum block provides an excellent foundation for this engine.

“The MR-1A blocks come with a minimum bore size of 4.250-inch, and use Darton Sleeves – there is no extra machine work required on the block,” Swaney explains. “We use these Kauffman Performance blocks exclusively in all of our high horsepower builds, but we have also used them to build reliable street engines, like this one.”

The 4.350-inch bore dimension used in this application is coupled with a 4.500-inch stroke Eagle crankshaft, forged Eagle 6.700-inch connecting rods, and Ross pistons to set the engine at 535 cubic inches.

The cylinder heads feature CNC combustion chambers and are capable of flowing monster numbers – but on this engine, they were used right out of the box. They bolt to all traditional Pontiac engine blocks, including the MR-1A, and don’t require the use of any special components like offset lifters or rocker shaft systems.

CNC-profiled High Port cylinder heads from Kauffman Racing Equipment were used right out of the box with excellent results.

Compression in this particular instance is set to 10.8:1 to give the customer some wiggle room in terms of fuel quality and tuning. “With our choice of parts, we’ve successfully run over 11.5:1 compression on 93 octane pump fuel with no issues.”

Swaney has developed a number of products to specifically service Pontiac enthusiasts, like the complete set of Tin Indian Performance gaskets that are used in the engine – the only gaskets the company doesn’t make are the head gaskets.

The Tin Indian Performance-manufactured Viton rear main seal is designed to keep engine oil where it belongs. This seal works in both the MR-1 and stock Pontiac engine blocks.

Their intake gaskets are designed to be a perfect match for the cylinder heads. Tin Indian Performance also manufactures a Viton 3.0-inch rear main seal that fits perfectly in the MR-1 block.

To make this kind of power, Swaney employed a custom TIP 4/7 swap hydraulic roller camshaft ground by COMP Cams, a set of Lunati hydraulic roller lifters, and a Rollmaster timing chain.

“The engine makes 12-13 inches of vacuum at 850 rpm with this combination. The KRE heads have a very efficient chamber and great sparkplug location. Most engines we build with these heads come in around 31-33 degrees of timing once we dial them in on the dyno,” says Swaney.

The forged Eagle rotating assembly is combined with a set of ROSS pistons to provide 10.8:1 compression when used in conjunction with the 80cc chambers in the cylinder heads.

On the dyno, he employed a Holley Dominator carburetor to see how much power the engine would make with the larger squirter on top, but the powerplant was shipped to the customer with a custom-configured Pro Systems HP 1000 cfm carburetor. The intake manifold is one of KRE’s Northwind manifolds that has been port-matched to the cylinder heads, and the heads have been topped off with a set of Tin Indian Performance logo’d Billet-TEK valve covers.

The engine also makes use of a custom Tin Indian Performance crankcase evacuation system to improve ring seal without the use of a dry sump oiling system.

This right here is one bad to the bone pump gas Poncho, cranking 690 horsepower at 5,400 rpm and 707 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,200 rpm on the TIP dyno. Check out the videos for the sweet sounds of horsepower!