PowerHouse Engines

PowerHouse Engines Powerhouse Engines — precision performance in Warragul, VIC 🇦🇺 Engine machining, custom builds & dyno tuning. Street, V8, Diesel & race builds.

Real workshop knowledge. Subscribe for tips & builds. Power isn’t guessed, it’s engineered. 📞 (03) 5623 3447 We have a state of the art facility and are one of the few shops who:
- Machine
- Assemble
- Dyno Tune
- All in-house
- Petrol or Diesel
- Road or Track

02/09/2026

⚠️ BASIC RULE: THREAD ENGAGEMENT = 1.5× BOLT DIAMETER

Something worth checking before you simply bolt aftermarket hardware in and assume it’s right.

In this video we’re looking at a set of ARP bolts for a Holden V8, available through Precision International — Part No. P1105-3601.

The factory bolt gives us approximately .604” of thread engagement into the block.

But when we fit the aftermarket bolt with the supplied washer, we’re only getting approximately .414” of engagement.

For reference, on a 7/16” bolt, the commonly used 1.5× diameter rule works out to approximately .656” of thread engagement.

That means the aftermarket bolt in this case isn’t even engaging one full bolt diameter into the block.

It’s another good example of why you should never assume something is right just because it’s listed to suit the application.

Measure it. Check it. Then bolt it together.

31/08/2026

🔥 YOU DON’T NEED A HUGE CAM TO MAKE POWER AT 7,500 RPM!

This 355 Holden is a perfect example of what can happen when the whole combination works together.

The combo:
🔧 355 Holden
🔧 11.3:1 compression
🔧 Factory VN-style heads — fully CNC ported
🔧 Torque Power high-rise dual-plane manifold
🔧 LS-style rocker setup
🔧 Hydraulic roller cam — just 242° @ .050”

And here’s the interesting part…

👉 With only 242° @ .050”, this thing was still making power at 7,500 RPM!

And just to make sure the car’s tacho wasn’t telling us porkies, we put the digital timing light on it and independently verified the RPM. Sure enough — it was right.

Before the CNC head work, the same combination made 360 hp and 318 ft-lb on a hub dyno.

With nothing else changed except the full CNC porting:
👉 397 hp
👉 335 ft-lb

That’s 37 hp and 17 ft-lb just from improving the cylinder heads.

On our Mainline chassis dyno, the car made 350 hp at the wheels.

It just shows that RPM capability isn’t simply about throwing a massive camshaft at an engine. Cylinder-head flow, compression, intake and the entire combination all have to work together.

A 242° hydraulic roller still making power at 7,500 RPM — and we verified the RPM. 👌

28/08/2026

🔥 609HP LX TORANA — AND IT SOUNDS AS TOUGH AS NAILS! 🔥

We’ve got Graham Catchpole’s four-door LX Torana strapped to the chassis dyno, and this thing is an absolute weapon.

💪 609HP on the late Wayne Cartlidge
Engine Dyno
🔥 425HP at the wheels
🏁 10.40 @ 128MPH

THE COMBO:
👉 383 Holden
👉 VN cast iron heads
👉 Harrop single-plane intake manifold
👉 950 CFM carburettor
👉 Engine 1” 7/8 4-into-1 extractors
👉 Solid roller camshaft
👉 98 pump fuel

Nothing too exotic — just a tough, well-sorted Holden combo that gets the job done.

We wind it all the way out to 7200 RPM on the chassis dyno — and if those numbers don’t get your attention, just listen to the bloody thing! 🔊🔥

You might also remember Graham was the very first bloke to grab a carton of Smoil from us — and it’s now in the Torana doing exactly what it was bought to do. 👌

At the end of the video I also give a quick plug for Pillar of Rock at the Robin Hood Hotel this Saturday night.

Winter can be bloody tough on pubs and live music venues, so if you’ve got nothing on, get out, support your local venue, have a few beers and come rock out with us. 🤘🍻

Turn this one up — the Torana sounds absolutely savage!

26/08/2026

🔥 200,000 VIEWS LATER… PENRITE CAME TO SEE US!

Our oil failure video certainly got people talking — and it didn’t take long before around 90% of the comments were pointing in the same direction.

Today, Jamie Roger from Penrite came down to PowerHouse Engines after seeing the amount of discussion around HPR 30 in the comments, and he was happy to jump on camera and clear a few things up.

Jamie explains that HPR 30 probably isn’t the right oil for this particular application, and talks about what the product was originally designed for — including helping engines suffering from high oil consumption.

He also takes us through some of Penrite’s newer product range and what they now recommend for different applications.

And to keep the conversation completely open, we also show the oil we currently use and recommend in our engines and explain why we’ve gone that direction.

Big credit to Jamie for coming down, getting on camera and being willing to have the conversation. 👌

There’s some really interesting information in this one — especially after the response to the original video.

24/08/2026

⚠️ WHAT OIL DO YOU RECKON WAS IN THIS ENGINE?

Grant Hayes’ stock-stroke 308 left our shop making a healthy 373 horsepower and running beautifully.

After only a few short drives, we got the phone call nobody wants to get:

“The engine’s rattling.”

When we got it back and pulled it down, the damage was savage.

👉 Camshaft destroyed
👉 Lifters destroyed
👉 Serious damage around the piston pin bosses and other high-load areas

We sent the failed camshaft back to the supplier for inspection. One of the first questions they asked us was:

“What oil was it running?”

We hadn’t supplied the oil, so we checked with the owner and went back to them with the answer.

Their response definitely got our attention.

They told us that around 95% of the camshaft failures they’d been seeing were engines running this particular oil.

I’m deliberately NOT naming the oil brand.

Instead, I’d love some input from our followers — particularly the engine builders, machinists and racers out there — and see what everyone comes up with.

👇 What oil do you reckon it was?

It’ll be interesting to see if one particular name keeps coming up… 👀

21/08/2026

⚠️ WHY WOULD CP-CARRILLO DELIBERATELY MAKE A PIN BORE NOT PERFECTLY STRAIGHT?

CP-Carrillo is rolling out Profiled Pin Bore Technology across its shelf piston range — and there’s some clever engineering behind it.

Instead of a conventional perfectly cylindrical pin bore, CP machines a precise trumpet-shaped profile into the bore.

Why? Under peak cylinder pressure, the gudgeon pin is heavily loaded and can deflect. The profiled bore helps spread that load more evenly, reducing concentrated stress around the pin bore and piston bosses.

CP says that in some applications this can reduce peak stress by as much as 30%, resulting in better load distribution, reduced wear and fatigue, and improved piston life.

And this technology is now being introduced into their high-volume shelf pistons, with plans to eventually roll it out across the entire shelf range.

A tiny detail you can barely see — but one that can make a massive difference under extreme cylinder pressure! 🔧💪

🏁 FIRST CARTON OF SMOIL OUT THE DOOR! 🏁A big thanks to Graham Catchpole, who picked up the very first carton of Driven S...
20/08/2026

🏁 FIRST CARTON OF SMOIL OUT THE DOOR! 🏁

A big thanks to Graham Catchpole, who picked up the very first carton of Driven Smoil – Steve Morris Racing Oil 25W-60 from PowerHouse Engines today.

The pallet has landed, the oil is in stock and ready to go, and Graham was first cab off the rank!

Smoil has been developed with serious performance engines in mind, particularly high horsepower, high bearing-load applications and alcohol/methanol fuels.

If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on it — we’ve got it on the shelf now.

🇦🇺 Available from PowerHouse Engines – Australian distributor for Steve Morris Engines products.

19/08/2026

⚠️ WHEN THE FIXTURE STARTS ROCKING… SOMETHING’S WRONG!

While setting up to machine the lifter bores on this Small Block Chev, we dropped our BHJ fixture onto the block and immediately noticed something we’d never seen before — the fixture was rocking on the machine bed.

That shouldn’t happen.

The first thought was that the camshaft and crankshaft centrelines weren’t where they were supposed to be, so before touching the lifter bores, we set the block up in our BHJ cam tunnel alignment fixture to find out exactly what was going on.

And it was a long way out.

👉 Around .025” side-to-side between the cam and crank centrelines
👉 Around .022” vertically

It was so far out that we ended up having to bore the cam tunnel to accept .040” oversize cam bearings just to get it cleaned up and correctly aligned.
025” sideways and .022” vertically is a massive amount of misalignment — and luckily the rocking fixture gave us the warning before we started machining anything.

This is also why simply sitting a BHJ lifter-bore fixture on the mains and assuming everything is square can get you into trouble. The fixture has to be set up and referenced correctly.

If the cam tunnel isn’t where you think it is, and you machine the lifter bores based on a bad reference, you can very quickly turn an existing problem into an even bigger one.

Measure it. Check it. Then machine it.

17/08/2026

⚠️ ALCOHOL FUEL & ENGINE OIL — NOT ALL OILS ARE MADE FOR IT!

Today we’ve got a 350 Chev Speedway engine on the dyno after a full season of racing, in for a freshen-up.

This engine has been running Penrite HPR 30, which is a good quality engine oil, but it isn’t specifically designed around the demands of an alcohol-fuelled race engine.

Pull the rocker cover off and you can see the result — the oil has gone extremely milky from moisture contamination.

The frustrating part is just how much work it takes to get enough temperature into one of these engines to actually steam that moisture back out of the oil. The oil may still be providing lubrication, but ideally we don’t want it looking like a milkshake between race meetings!

Perfect timing, because our first shipment of Steve Morris Smoil has just landed at PowerHouse Engines.

Smoil has been formulated specifically with methanol and alcohol-fuelled race engines in mind — designed to deal with the moisture and fuel contamination these engines are exposed to, while also providing serious protection under the extreme bearing loads, cylinder pressures and temperatures found in high-performance race engines.

It’s an oil developed for exactly the sort of hard-core applications we deal with every day, and we’re looking forward to putting it to work in engines just like this one.

Smoil is in stock and ready to ship this week through the PowerHouse Engines website. 🇦🇺

Sometimes it’s not about whether an oil is “good” or “bad” — it’s about using the right oil for the application.

14/08/2026

⚠️ YOUR .875” LIFTER MIGHT NOT REALLY BE .875”

Every camshaft profile has a minimum lifter diameter requirement — and this is where the chamfer on the bottom of the lifter becomes critical.

In this example, we’re looking at a .875” Ford lifter.

Sounds simple enough… until we measure the inside edge of the chamfer.

👉 Only .825”

That means if you were running an aggressive cam profile requiring a minimum .830” lifter diameter, the cam lobe could actually run off the edge of the usable lifter face.

And once that happens, you can damage the lifter, destroy the cam lobe and potentially turn a perfectly good engine into a very expensive problem.

Don’t just check the lifter diameter — check the usable diameter inside the chamfer.

It’s another small detail that can make a massive difference in an engine build.

Address

6 Lindy Court
Warragul, VIC
3820

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Telephone

+61356233447

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