Joe Pena made 646 horsepower to the rear wheels on the Evolution Dyno. Then he opened the blue bottle up and made 832 HP to the rear wheels!

Serious Power. I don't think there are any better words to describe this 72 Nova. Joe Pena has been a big dog on the streets in El Paso for a long time. He started with an old gutted out white 67 Camaro with a Barton Bro's stocker 350 and a ton of nitrous that ran mid 11's. Pena was already getting a reputation for running nitrous and was actually undefeated at Electric and 54 illegals until Adrian Duron brought out his Black Mustang GT. These were the days of meeting to race at Super Shops. Joe went on to build another Camaro with a big block. He used a car in much nicer shape with a big 509 Chevy, a 10.5" wide tire and some more nitrous. Joe got this set up to run a 9.70 at 142mph in El Paso and had to sell it with still more potential in the combo. His third car is another 10.5" tire street car. Joe went with his favorite body style, the 70 Nova. He got the car from a friend as a straight Rally Nova rolling shell. Joe did all of the work at home under his carport. Including building the motor and setting up everything on the car with the best parts like the Wilwood disc brakes, rack and pinion conversion, and Aluminum Moser 9" Ford rear with 3.89 gears. The 540 is set in a Merlin Block with 12.5:1 JE pistons and a .700 lift roller. It's topped with Canfield Aluminum heads and an Edelbrock Victor Intake. Of course the car is set up for running nitrous. Joe had a Turbo 400 in it, but decided to sell it and go with his manual Jerrico. The 4 speed is hooked up to McCloud Clutch and Aluminum Flywheel set up that he said is too hard to use so far. Joe believes in spending money only if it's going to make the car faster, so when it came to a paint job he rolled it over to his friends house where they did the body work and sprayed it in the back yard!

So far Joe has only run a 10.10 slipping all over the track but ran a very fast 145mph! This is with only 175 shot of nitrous with much more planned if he can get it to hook. Joe is now going to wait until he puts a ladder bar set up on before he races it again. If the ladder bars will hook, watch for this car to run some numbers on a good track with that much power.

I'll let you know when it does!

Centerline Telstars with his old M/T slicks that only held air for about 30 minutes! (Joe says: "I'm looking for a sponsor to help with slicks - even just let me borrow some!")

Gotta love that stance.