Tie with father, full of energy and passion (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
dead heat
'tie' is the definition.
(I know that dead heat is a type of tie)
'father full of energy and passion' is the wordplay.
'father' becomes 'dad' (informal term for father).
'full of' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'energy' becomes 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mce).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'passion' becomes 'heat' (synonyms).
'dad' placed around 'e' is 'dead'.
'dead'+'heat'='DEAD-HEAT'
'with' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for dead heat that I've seen before include "Exactly tied race" , "A draw in race, competitors finish exactly even" , "Tied race result" , "A shared first place" , "Closest possible finish" .)