Even at a glance, you can tell there’s something different about this LS build. Sure, it’s got all the usual high-end stuff: billet aluminum everywhere, a dry-sump oiling system, even a low-drag electric water pump. But that’s not it. No, it’s the absolutely gigantic cylinder heads bolted to the top of the block and the plug wires routed through the center of the valve covers. Welcome to the hemi-headed LS known as Hatemaker.

Spend five minutes listening to Ben Strader talk about this engine and you’ll realize you’re not in Kansas anymore. This isn’t just an LS. It’s a hemi-headed LS engine capable of 10,000 rpm that nearly broke its creator before it ever had a chance to make sweet magic on the dyno.

The engine in question is a Dart LS Next-based small-block with a 4.185-inch bore and 3.850-inch stroke, to total 424 cubic inches. Then it is topped with custom Hammerhead Performance Engines hemi cylinder heads — originally designed for a small-block Ford. But this story isn’t about dropping parts in a catalog and spinning the crank. It’s about reverse-engineering airflow, geometry, and combustion to extract every ounce of horsepower while preserving real-world streetability to create the most powerful naturally aspirated drag-and-drive LS engine ever.

Even if you miss the cool Hammerhead logo, the giant heads bolted to the decks of this Dart LS Next block are an instant clue that this is no ordinary LS build.

Origins of the Beast

Strader, who operates EFI University teaching horsepower fanatics how to tune engines, as well as 10K Technology, which designs and manufactures high-end speed parts, says that the engine originally started with a much more conventional blueprint. Strader was working with a different racer on a big-inch drag-and-drive build that used conventional 10-degree LS cylinder heads. “Schedules never lined up and we never ran it,” Strader says. “I wasn’t super happy with the early setup. I threw everything at it — four cams — and it still underperformed.”

When they had to cancel their racing plans because of scheduling conflicts, Strader pushed the engine in a corner and practically forgot about it. That is until drag-and-drive racer Ed Ensor came knocking.

“Ed had been bugging me about building him something,” Strader recalls. “At PRI, he cornered me. I told him I had this short-block ready to go which was all good stuff. And I had some LS hemi heads I’d been working on, and maybe we could put those together and come up with something. That’s where it started.”

Because the Hammerhead hemi heads were originally designed for a Ford, the bore centerlines are off by a few thousandths of an inch with the LS. To fully center the valve pockets for each pair of cylinders, Strader worked with Diamond Pistons to complete a fully custom set of slugs for Hatemaker.

A Hemi In LS Clothing

At the heart of the resurrection were the Hammerhead Performance Engines cylinder heads which Strader had ported by airflow legend Darin Morgan at BES Racing Engines. The numbers were jaw-dropping: 2.350-inch Victory1 titanium intake valves and ports capable of moving 515 CFM at an inch of lift. Strader is a bit more cagey with the exhaust, but we do know it is “over 330 cfm” with 1.640-inch titanium valves manufactured by Xceldyne. “The exhaust performance is part of the magic on a good-running Hemi,” Strader says.

But bolting them onto an LS block wasn’t as simple as swapping gaskets. “Those heads are made for a small-block Ford, with a 4.384 bore spacing while the LS is 4.400,” Strader explains. “So now the bore spacing and the valve centerlines don’t match, and we had to have custom pistons made for each pair of cylinders because we didn’t want massive valve pockets hurting piston strength or performance.” The problem with heads made for a different bore distance is the differences stack up as you move toward the back of the block. So if the valves are centered over the bore for cylinder number one, the shorter 4.384 distance for the heads means the valve centerlines are off 0.016 to one side on cylinders three and four.

That may not sound like much, but with the compounding error, cylinders five and six are off by 0.032 of an inch and 0.048 for seven and eight. Minimizing the size of the valve pockets are why Strader had to have four different pairs of custom pistons made for this build. Diamond Pistons worked closely with Strader to make molds of each chamber, digitize the results, and manufacture each highly customized piston.

Underneath, the short-block uses Carrillo 6.125-inch H-beam rods with tiny Honda-sized rod journals connected to a Winberg crankshaft. To be able to withstand the incredible power generated, the mains on the Winberg crank are the LS standard diameter. A Dailey Engineering five-stage dry-sump system helps maintain constant oil pressure no matter how high the g-forces get, and an RCD Engineering gear drive provides durability on the street and precision when the RPM is screaming in excess of nine grand. “That gear drive setup fits under a billet cover which keeps out debris, rocks — whatever you might catch on a drag and drive,” Strader says. “It’s about stability at high RPM too. Chains just can’t compete.”

Cam Science and Valvetrain Voodoo

The valvetrain of the hemi-headed LS is just as well developed. Strader went with a large-diameter Comp Cams 60mm tool-steel camshaft. It is ground with 0.485 inches of intake lobe lift and 0.540 exhaust. With 2.1:1 intake and 1.8:1 exhaust rocker ratios from a custom Jesel shaft rocker setup, final valve lift is 1.019 and 0.972 inches, respectively.

“I start at the valve motion I want, and we work backward to the cam,” he says. “But I did miss on the first cam. The goal all along is nearly 10,000 rpm, and with the first cam it ran out of steam too early. The engine made 1,125 [horsepower] or something and I knew it had the potential to make 1,200. It just peaked too low. But that first cam did make, like 700 pound-feet of torque.” When it didn’t meet his horsepower targets, Strader went back to the drawing board and, with the help of Comp’s Chris Potter and Billy Godbold (now on his own with Godbold Engineering Solutions) came up with an all-new set of intake and exhaust lobe profiles. Those lobes are now part of Comp’s DWL and DWX families — born from this Frankenstein engine.

Valve spring life at 10,000 rpm became another challenge that required a few iterations to get right. “I had this genius idea of using a tiny spring on the exhaust to minimize load,” Strader says. “It worked great — until 9,100 rpm. Then everything went off the rails. We learned the hard way.” Thankfully, Strader has his own Spintron machine and did extensive valvetrain testing before actually firing-up the engine for the first time.

The Manifold from Oz

Strader’s worldwide hunt for horsepower also had him reach out as far as Australia, where he teamed up with Aaron Tremayne of NxtGen Engineering to design a custom billet intake. “I digitized the whole top end with a coordinate measuring arm,” Strader explains. “Sent it all to Aaron, and he built this amazing manifold from scratch.”

Strader created a fully digitized rendering of the engine’s top end and sent it to NxtGen Racing in Australia for Aaron Tremayne to fabricate a CNC billet intake manifold designed specifically to help the LS hit Strader’s performance goals.

They intentionally went with an old-school 4500-style carb-style manifold and not a front-breather. “Nothing makes power like this at high RPM,” Strader says. “You don’t want to leave anything on the table.”

Twin Holley Terminator X throttle bodies sit atop the hemi-headed LS, but drivability was a concern, especially with such aggressive airflow. “We added an extra set of low-mounted injectors,” he says. “It’ll cruise on those and transition to the uppers under throttle.”

Ignition Gremlins and Real-World Roadblocks

But just when they thought the hard part was over, ignition issues surfaced. “It would run clean a few times, then misfire at high RPM,” Strader recalls. “I swapped to Holley Smart Coils. The extra power of those coils should have helped it, but it got worse. That’s when I talked to Jon Kaase.”

Kaase had seen similar issues with pushrod tubes and spark leaks in Pro Stock Hemis. The solution for him was to enlarge the spark plug tubes that run from the valve covers and into the heads so that the spark couldn’t travel from the wire to the surrounding material. Strader couldn’t do that with this package, but now that he knew the cause, he could find a solution. By stuffing the tubes with dielectric grease, he was able to keep the energy provided by the coils reliably travelling down the plug wires and to the spark plugs where it belonged.

By the time the hemi-headed LS hit the dyno, the engine was running on oxygenated Q16 fuel. With proper tuning it can potentially run a blend of Q16 and 91 pump for street use, but with a sky-high 15.82:1 compression ratio, straight pump-gas just isn’t an option. “Q16 is expensive, but Ed says it’s the cheapest part of the whole car,” Strader laughs.

Final numbers? 1,198 horsepower at 10,000 rpm — just shy of the magic 1,200-horsepower number. But in Strader’s mind, it’s mission accomplished.

A Unicorn Engine in a World of LS7s

Despite the power, Strader doesn’t see the hemi-headed LS as a mass-market package. “It’s a super complex project,” he says. “A lot of guys think it’s cool — until they realize what it takes. It’s not a bolt-on combo.”

Even so, he believes there’s value in showing what’s possible. “Scooter Brothers at Comp told me: ‘Pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land.’ That’s how I feel. We went through the hurdles so maybe someone else doesn’t have to.”

And just when you think the story’s over, Strader drops one last twist: that gorgeous intake manifold is in line for another revision. “We’re relocating all eight injectors down low. It’ll have better startup, better cruise, no question.”

It’s a never-ending quest for “better” — for smarter solutions, cleaner execution, and of course, bigger numbers. That’s what makes this build more than just a one-off LS with weird heads. By the way, that’s why this hemi-headed LS  has been nicknamed “Project Hatemaker,” because so many internet warriors absolutely hated the idea of hemi cylinder heads on an LS block. But this is a case study in the kind of relentless, obsessive engineering that only a guy like Ben Strader would be crazy enough to attempt.

And we love it!

Ben Strader’s Project Hatemaker hemi-headed LS is designed to be the most powerful naturally aspirated drag-and-drive LS engine ever.