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

17/06/2026

⚠️ Expensive Lesson

These JE pistons shed their skirt coating, blocked the oil pickup, and caused an oil pressure failure.

The result? Engine out, full strip-down, re-hone, re-coat, and rebuild.

Sometimes it’s not the tune-up or the machine work that gets you… it’s the parts.

15/06/2026

Tech Screw Disaster ⚠️

Trying to remove welsh plugs with a tech screw and slide hammer? Be careful.

This 6HK1 Isuzu came in with a tech screw driven straight through the welsh plug and into the cylinder wall. The result? A damaged bore that now needs sleeving to repair.

Sometimes the quick way becomes the expensive way.

11/06/2026

🚨 Big Block Ford Tech Tip 🚨

Chasing an oil leak on this 557 Big Block Ford led us to the top bellhousing bolt.

What many people don’t realise is that this bolt hole breaks through into the lifter valley. If the threads aren’t sealed properly, it’ll leak oil straight out the back of the engine.

A simple fix, but easy to miss.

09/06/2026

REAL DEBT COLLECTOR WANTED
PM Me for details

08/06/2026

🚨 HOLDEN 308 INTAKE GASKET WARNING 🚨

While assembling another Holden 308 today, we ran into something that caught us completely off guard.

We’ve always used the old Redline-style paper intake gaskets because they’re easy to trim and modify for larger ports. With those becoming harder to find, we decided to try an alternative gasket that came fitted to an engine that arrived at the shop.

After a bit of detective work, Adam tracked them down as a Pro Comp gasket.

The surprise came when I unpacked them.

As I pulled one from the shrink-wrapped packaging, it snapped clean in half through the port opening. Thinking it was a one-off, I grabbed a Fel-Pro 1206 gasket and folded it repeatedly without any issues. The difference in flexibility was massive.

I’m not saying these gaskets won’t seal or that they’re unusable, but they are definitely more brittle than what we’re used to seeing.

If you’re using this style of gasket, take extra care when handling them, unpacking them, and fitting them to the manifold. A little too much bending and you could easily end up breaking one before the engine even goes together.

Have you come across these before? Let us know your experience in the comments.

05/06/2026

TRI-Y vs 4 INTO 1… the final test on Glenn Bamford’s 355 Holden!

For this round we tested the DiFilippo 1¾” 4-into-1 headers with a 3” collector and compared them directly against the Pacemaker 1¾” Tri-Ys.

While the differences were small, the Tri-Y design came out on top across the working range of the engine.

Average results from 3,000-6,700rpm:

🔹 Pacemaker Tri-Y
• 429 ft-lb average torque
• 398 hp average power

🔹 DiFilippo 4 Into 1
• 427 ft-lb average torque
• 396 hp average power

Peak numbers only tell part of the story. Average power and torque across the rev range are what you feel every time you drive the car.

After pushing this combination through intake, fuel and exhaust testing, we’ve learned a lot about what really works on a tough street 355 Holden.

Would you run the Tri-Ys or the 4 Into 1s?

03/06/2026

Can a simple carb spacer really make a difference?

We bolted a CJS Dual Plane Carb Spacer with a shear plate onto Glenn Bamford’s 355 Holden to find out.

The result? A gain of 16 ft-lb of torque right through the middle of the curve where a street engine spends most of its time.

No changes to the tune-up. No magic tricks. Just a well-designed spacer improving the airflow path into the manifold.

Sometimes it’s the small changes that make the biggest difference on the dyno.

01/06/2026

Still on the dyno with Glenn Bamford’s 355 Holden, we decided to test a Torque Power High Rise dual-plane manifold kindly supplied by Greg Shepherd.

This manifold had only received some minor port matching and cleanup work to suit Gregs iron cylinder heads.

The results were impressive.

The engine produced 524 horsepower and 447 ft-lbs of torque, with a broad torque curve and strong power throughout the usable RPM range.

It just goes to show that a well-designed dual-plane manifold can still be a serious performer on a tough street 355.

Big thanks to Greg for supplying the manifold and giving us the opportunity to put it to the test.

31/05/2026

The PowerHouse Podcast is officially underway. 🎙️

The goal is simple… sit down with the people who have built the engines, raced the cars, made the mistakes, found the solutions and gathered decades of knowledge along the way.

Some of the best stories and lessons in our industry have never been recorded.

Let’s change that.

First episodes coming soon.

29/05/2026

For this test on Glenn Bamford’s 355 Holden, we made a last-minute decision to throw a Harrop dual-plane into the mix. Huge thanks to James Rees for tracking down a brand-new Harrop manifold on Marketplace and offering it up for testing.

The goal was simple: could the Harrop a true under-bonnet dual-plane manifold produce better low-end torque than the single-planes we’ve tested, while still having enough airflow to push towards the 500hp mark?

The results were impressive.

The Harrop produced 492 horsepower and 438 ft-lbs of torque, with a strong torque curve and noticeably better bottom-end performance than the Edelbrock single-plane. Up top, however, it eventually ran out of airflow and plenum volume compared to the larger single-plane manifolds.

Did it make the most peak power? No.

Did it prove that a well-designed dual-plane is still a serious performer on a tough street 355? Absolutely.

Full results in tonight’s short!

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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