Drag Racing Engine – X-Block Gets Dyno’ Tested for X-Mas

Nick’s Garage turned Christmas week into a holiday tradition built entirely around horsepower, pouring shots of Ouzo before strapping a freshly built Mopar X-block to the dyno. Viewers immediately recognized the engine as Chrysler’s high-performance 340, a small block that punched above its displacement against the 350s and 302s of its era. Between the shop-family comment section and the raw, door-open exhaust note, this is less a spec-sheet video than a shop full of engine builders sharing their holiday. Watch to see what the pull actually makes.

Most people unwrap a sweater for Christmas. Nick did something different: he walked into his dyno cell, poured a round of Ouzo for everyone standing around, and told the camera it was about to get loud. There was no name on the gift, no ribbon, just an engine already strapped to the machine and a room full of guys who clearly knew what was coming. What followed wasn’t a polished product reveal or a scripted countdown — it was the kind of unfiltered, slightly chaotic holiday tradition that only makes sense if you’ve spent your career building horsepower for a living. The pull itself is the payoff, but getting there is half the fun.

A Christmas Tradition Built Around Horsepower

The video opens less like a car review and more like a holiday get-together that happens to be staged around a chassis dyno. Nick, who signs off his videos with the Greek toast “Yasou,” pours shots of Ouzo before the pull even starts, and one commenter jokingly dubbed the whole affair “D.W.I. — Dynoing While Intoxicated.” It’s a loose, unscripted atmosphere that has defined Nick’s Garage since its earliest uploads, and longtime viewers say the channel’s older videos hold up just as well as anything filmed today. Instead of a countdown graphic or a sponsor read, the room simply gets quiet, someone hits the throttle, and the engine does the talking. That informality is the entire appeal: there’s no pretense that this is a controlled laboratory test, just a shop full of people who build engines for a living choosing to spend part of their holiday listening to one make noise.

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What Makes an “X-Block” Worth Celebrating

Fans in the comments immediately recognized the engine on the stand as an “X-block” — Chrysler’s factory code for the high-performance 340-cubic-inch small block built from 1968 through 1973. Unlike the garden-variety LA-series V8s that powered everyday Dusters and Darts, the X-code 340 shipped with a stouter block casting, larger-port heads, and a factory camshaft aggressive enough that Mopar people still consider it one of the best-breathing small blocks Detroit ever built pound for pound. It’s an engine that punched well above its displacement against 350s and 302s of the same era, and that reputation is exactly why a stripped, freshly built example landing on Nick’s dyno on Christmas week carries weight with his audience. One viewer said he’s had his own numbers-matching 1970 X-block sitting on an engine stand for years, waiting for the spare cash to finish the build — a reminder that these blocks are still actively being resurrected in home garages today.

The Comment Section That Feels Like a Shop Family

What separates Nick’s Garage from a lot of engine-building content is how personally invested the audience is. One regular, who signs his comments “Alex G,” wrote that going back through Nick and George’s earliest uploads is “like real treasure,” and that the videos hold up exactly as well years later. Others compare the show favorably to bigger-budget shop programs, saying the dyno pulls and the running commentary beat anything a slicker production could offer. That loyalty didn’t happen by accident — Nick closes this video the way he closes most of them, thanking the room by name and previewing what’s coming in the next season of builds. For a channel built on unscripted shop time rather than manufactured drama, that kind of audience trust is the real return on investment.

Why the Door Stays Open

A small but telling detail from the video: at least one commenter specifically thanked Nick for running the pull with the dyno room door open, noting that it lets the exhaust note carry the way it’s meant to be heard rather than getting swallowed by the room. It’s a minor choice, but it says something about how deliberately Nick’s Garage treats the sound of an engine as part of the entertainment, not just background noise. Chassis dyno rooms are typically built to contain noise and exhaust, so opening things up costs some of that control in exchange for a rawer, more honest recording — the difference between hearing an engine and feeling it. For a channel whose whole identity is built around the sound and character of American V8s, that tradeoff is clearly worth making every time.

How the 340 Stacks Up Against Its Small-Block Rivals

The X-code 340 built its reputation the same way most great small blocks do: by punching above its displacement class. Against Chevrolet’s ubiquitous 350 and Ford’s 302, the Mopar 340 was smaller in cubic inches but often quicker in period magazine tests thanks to its free-breathing cylinder heads and aggressive factory cam profile — the same ingredients that make a fresh rebuild worth toasting decades later. It never got the marketing push that Chevrolet’s small block enjoyed, and it was phased out by 1973 in favor of the larger 360, which is part of why surviving 340 blocks, especially numbers-matching X-code examples, carry a premium among Mopar builders today. Seeing one land on a dyno in running, healthy condition — rather than as a rusted core engine pulled from a barn — is exactly the kind of moment that gets a niche audience genuinely excited.

The Builds Viewers Want to See Next

Nick closes the video by thanking his crew and previewing a new season of builds, old projects being finished, and — in his words — “making lots of new power.” That kind of direct promise matters to a channel like this, where the audience isn’t just watching for spec sheets but for the ongoing story of specific engines and specific people. Regulars in the comments are already speculating about which stalled project from Nick’s shop might finally get finished next, and more than one viewer used the moment to share their own stalled build sitting on a stand at home, waiting for the same kind of push this X-block just got. It’s a community that treats every dyno pull less as a one-off video and more as a chapter in something ongoing.

A Small Block With a Big Following

None of this required a barn find, a six-figure auction, or a rare factory paint code — just a well-built small block, a room full of people who understand what they’re listening to, and a holiday tradition that’s stuck around long enough to become part of the channel’s identity. That’s arguably the more honest side of muscle car culture: not the cars that sell for a million dollars at Barrett-Jackson, but the ones still being rebuilt in home garages by people trading holiday shots of Ouzo for the sound of a 340 coming back to life. It’s a small moment in the broader story of the Mopar small block, but it’s exactly the kind of moment that keeps a niche as small as X-code engine builders coming back to the same channel, year after year, dyno pull after dyno pull.

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