The Haltech Horsepower Heroes competition is off to a flying start at Street Machine Summernats 38, with Darren Portelli’s twin-turbo big-block powered HQ Holden shattering the Aussie dyno competition record with a wild 3513hp pull in the MPW Dyno Cell.

“I’ve never seen a car go anywhere near that in competition in Australia – nothing has made north of 3000hp before,” said dyno operator, Adam Rogash from MPW Performance. “It’s the most power we’ve seen made in competition here at Summernats by 1000hp.”

The previous record was set by the MAKDDY VL at Summernats 36, to the tune of 2504hp.

The HQ showed solid form earlier this week with a stonking 3415hp pull in testing.

“We had the car on the dyno at the workshop on Monday with 50psi in it,” said Adam. “Nads from Fueltech tunes the car, and today he put 56psi into it and pulled the lock-up clutch on earlier, and that was enough to top 3500hp.”

Darren was suitably stoked and perhaps even a little surprised by the numbers the car made today. “I didn’t expect it, but it happened!” he grinned. “To make that sort of power and break the record is awesome – I’m stoked. The car just works – we’ve had no dramas at all so far. We still need to make more pulls in the finals and I think this might be all it’s got, but I’ll talk to Nads and see if we can put a few more pounds in it!”

The Quey runs a Dandy-built, Dart-blocked 540ci big-block Chev with AFR heads and twin Precision 88mm turbos, backed by an M&M transmission. Dan Szabolics put the car together for Darren, and it runs a similar combo to the twin-turbo fatty in Dan’s own HQ, which is set to join the Horsepower Heroes party tomorrow.

Couple that to an ear-shattering all-motor 1093hp pull from JT Performance-built Capri, powered by a BK Race Engines 645ci big-block Ford in the naturally aspirated class earlier today, and the stage is set for an epic finals showdown!