An 1,800-horsepower V8, a rigid rear axle, giant turbochargers… and a Camaro that you can drive every day. In Missouri, Justin Keith commutes to work behind the wheel of a radically prepared Chevrolet that delivers around 1,800 hp to the rear wheels. Not a weekend toy, not a strip-only dragster, but his everyday car on local roads.
Owner of Killer Performance, Justin Keith started with a brand-new sixth-generation Camaro ZL1 as the base and turned it into Nemo, a monster painted in Orange Crush. This Camaro ZL1 1,800 hp rips through quarter-mile runs and also handles a roughly 35- to 40-minute drive from home to the shop. Such versatility quickly raises questions about fuel economy, but also about what it really means for everyday life for its owner.
From the stock Camaro ZL1 to Nemo, an 1,800-HP Monster
Originally, Nemo was a sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 powered by the 6.2L LT4 supercharged V8 rated at 650 hp. Justin Keith removed the supercharger to install a bored-and-stroked LT engine to 390 cubic inches, forged and assembled by Late Model Engines, fed by two Garrett G45 80-mm turbochargers. The result is nearly 1,800 hp delivered to the rear wheels, a figure published at the wheels rather than at the crank. The stock 10-speed automatic was replaced with a 3-speed TH400 automatic better suited to brutal quarter-mile use. “Not everyone is ready to go this far with something. But it has a purpose, and it’s to go fast in a straight line,” Justin Keith explains in a video relayed by SupercarBlondie.
To keep Nemo on course for the 1/4 mile, the independent rear suspension was swapped for a drag-ready solid rear axle. That choice, paired with the engine work, has allowed the car to notch more than 200 runs at the 1,000‑foot mark (about 400 meters) from a standstill, with a best time around 7.5 seconds at more than 180 mph (about 290 km/h), making it the fastest sixth‑generation Camaro on this test. Justin Keith’s stated goal is to push power toward 2,500 hp to aim for a 6‑second quarter. And yet, despite its dragstrip pedigree, Nemo also serves every day for the trek to the Killer Performance shop on those long, 35‑ to 40‑minute drives.
Camaro ZL1 1,800 hp: a daily fuel bill close to 30 L/100 km
With this level of preparation, fuel consumption follows the same logic. On the road, Nemo runs at about 8 mpg on E90 race ethanol, roughly 29.4 L/100 km. The tank holds about 57 liters (roughly 15 gallons), giving an approximate theoretical range of only around 190 kilometers, which means frequent trips to the pump as soon as the car is used for several days in a row. From a owner’s perspective, two issues stand out immediately: a very high fuel budget and power that’s well beyond what can be realistically exploited on open roads.
Compared to a stock Camaro, Nemo’s fuel use isn’t a model of efficiency. A V8 can approach about 14.7 L/100 km (roughly 16 mpg) in city/highway driving, while a four-cylinder version can reach around 25 mpg (about 9.4 L/100 km). Nemo thus easily consumes two to three times as much as a standard Camaro, underscoring the budget implications even if fuel prices stay comparatively low in Missouri. Beyond the numbers, daily life behind the wheel of an 1,800‑hp car requires other compromises: air conditioning has been removed to make room for the heavy turbo plumbing, the V8 idles around 3,000 rpm at about 65 mph (105 km/h) with the 3‑speed and the rigid rear, and the setup remains loud and fatiguing on long trips. In normal street use, Justin Keith can only tap into a fraction of the power available—roughly 20 to 30 percent—while the rest makes the most sense on the drag strip. But for the builder, Nemo’s pull goes beyond those constraints: “I’ve poured a lot of heart into this car. I’ve put in a lot of work, blood, sweat, tears… and I just can’t imagine getting rid of it,” he says in the same video, continuing to live a daily life of timed runs and fuel stops that come close together.
