With a V-6 as powerful as some competitors' V-8s, and with a V-8 developed for the Corvette, the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro is not short on performance. Still, some people want even more, and John Hennessey hopes to provide it.

Hennessey built his reputation as a high-performance car tuner with his version of the Dodge Viper. He's branched out into other makes and models and recently launched his spin on the new Camaro.

Tuning cars, said Hennessey, was "a hobby that got out of control" for 15 years. But five years ago, he said, he got serious about making the hobby a real business, so he bought an eighth-mile drag strip west of Houston, expanded the track to a full quarter-mile and built a new shop for Hennessey Performance Engineering at Lonestar Motorsports Park in Sealy, Texas.

To make sure his Camaros are properly tuned, Hennessey brought in recently retired General Motors Corp.'s high-performance vehicle engineering veteran John Heinricy, a many-time national sports car racing champion, as a consultant and test driver.

Heinricy headed the engineering group at GM that had been working on an even higher performance version of the Camaro, but that program was put on hold because of the recessionary turn in the economy.

Hennessey is working on several higher-performance versions of the Camaro, beginning with what he calls the HPE550, a 562-horsepower variant that features a Magnuson/Hennessey supercharger, Corsa exhaust, and Hennessey's own air induction system, high-flow fuel injectors, engine management software, wheels and body kit.

You can buy those parts for around $19,000 and install them yourself, or Hennessey's shop will do a turnkey package for around $25,000 on your LS3-equipped Camaro SS.

He's also setting up a small network of Chevrolet dealers who will offer turnkey packages.

If 562 horsepower isn't enough, Hennessey plans to drop a tweaked version of the Corvette ZR1's LS9 engine under the Camaro's hood, which he'll replace with his own hood complete with a see-through blower window. Add on carbon fiber body components, lightweight 19-inch wheels, Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tires, 14-inch front and rear brakes, coil over suspension and upgraded sway bars and you get the 705-hp HPE700 Camaro.

Opt for a twin-turbocharged variation of the engine and the car becomes the 850-hp HPE800 or -- gulp -- the HPE1000, with that four-digit figure representing the engine's revised power output.

For information, visit www.hennesseyperformance.com.