diff --git a/lib/http.js b/lib/http.js
index f76bd50bbf..d322ab2553 100644
--- a/lib/http.js
+++ b/lib/http.js
@@ -759,6 +759,10 @@ OutgoingMessage.prototype.addTrailers = function(headers) {
 };
 
 
+var zero_chunk_buf = new Buffer('\r\n0\r\n');
+var crlf_buf = new Buffer('\r\n');
+
+
 OutgoingMessage.prototype.end = function(data, encoding) {
   if (this.finished) {
     return false;
@@ -776,8 +780,7 @@ OutgoingMessage.prototype.end = function(data, encoding) {
   var ret;
 
   var hot = this._headerSent === false &&
-            typeof(data) === 'string' &&
-            data.length > 0 &&
+            (data && data.length > 0) &&
             this.output.length === 0 &&
             this.connection &&
             this.connection.writable &&
@@ -789,13 +792,73 @@ OutgoingMessage.prototype.end = function(data, encoding) {
     //   res.end(blah);
     // HACKY.
 
-    if (this.chunkedEncoding) {
-      var l = Buffer.byteLength(data, encoding).toString(16);
-      ret = this.connection.write(this._header + l + CRLF +
-                                  data + '\r\n0\r\n' +
-                                  this._trailer + '\r\n', encoding);
+    if (typeof data === 'string') {
+      if (this.chunkedEncoding) {
+        var l = Buffer.byteLength(data, encoding).toString(16);
+        ret = this.connection.write(this._header + l + CRLF +
+                                    data + '\r\n0\r\n' +
+                                    this._trailer + '\r\n', encoding);
+      } else {
+        ret = this.connection.write(this._header + data, encoding);
+      }
+    } else if (Buffer.isBuffer(data)) {
+      if (this.chunkedEncoding) {
+        var chunk_size = data.length.toString(16);
+
+        // Skip expensive Buffer.byteLength() calls; only ISO-8859-1 characters
+        // are allowed in HTTP headers. Therefore:
+        //
+        //   this._header.length == Buffer.byteLength(this._header.length)
+        //   this._trailer.length == Buffer.byteLength(this._trailer.length)
+        //
+        var header_len = this._header.length;
+        var chunk_size_len = chunk_size.length;
+        var data_len = data.length;
+        var trailer_len = this._trailer.length;
+
+        var len = header_len
+                + chunk_size_len
+                + 2   // '\r\n'.length
+                + data_len
+                + 5   // '\r\n0\r\n'.length
+                + trailer_len
+                + 2;  // '\r\n'.length
+
+        var buf = new Buffer(len);
+        var off = 0;
+
+        buf.write(this._header, off, header_len, 'ascii');
+        off += header_len;
+
+        buf.write(chunk_size, off, chunk_size_len, 'ascii');
+        off += chunk_size_len;
+
+        crlf_buf.copy(buf, off);
+        off += 2;
+
+        data.copy(buf, off);
+        off += data_len;
+
+        zero_chunk_buf.copy(buf, off);
+        off += 5;
+
+        if (trailer_len > 0) {
+          buf.write(this._trailer, off, trailer_len, 'ascii');
+          off += trailer_len;
+        }
+
+        crlf_buf.copy(buf, off);
+
+        ret = this.connection.write(buf);
+      } else {
+        var header_len = this._header.length;
+        var buf = new Buffer(header_len + data.length);
+        buf.write(this._header, 0, header_len, 'ascii');
+        data.copy(buf, header_len);
+        ret = this.connection.write(buf);
+      }
     } else {
-      ret = this.connection.write(this._header + data, encoding);
+      throw new TypeError('first argument must be a string or Buffer');
     }
     this._headerSent = true;