Australia registered their highest Ashes total on home soil and then left Joe Root's tourists to bat through almost five sessions to avoid an innings defeat in the third Test.
Steve Smith (239) and Mitch Marsh (181) added only 10 runs to their epic combined contribution before James Anderson (four for 116) had both lbw, but the Australia captain was still able to declare on a mammoth 662 for nine.
England's task was unenviable but James Vince (55) at least helped to push this mismatched contest into a final day, with a stumps total of 132 for four.
Rain brought an early end to the fourth day's play, meaning Monday's final day will start half an hour early at 10am local time (2am GMT).
Josh Hazlewood's tight line and pace had posed too many questions with the new ball for Mark Stoneman, who edged behind pushing forward.
Then Alastair Cook's lean tour continued with a half-chance poked back to Hazlewood, who duly pulled off a brilliant one-handed catch low in his follow-through.
Root himself hinted at some fluent defiance until he was dismissed by the first ball of Nathan Lyon's spell and was again very well caught by Smith at slip, the home skipper adjusting his timing after a big deflection from the wicketkeeper's glove.
It therefore fell to Vince and Dawid Malan to try to keep Australia at bay.
Vince mixed his attacking fluency with calm and watchful defence, and there were 11 fours in his 82-ball 50 before he lost his off-stump to an unplayable ball from Mitchell Starc which deviated almost sideways from round the wicket at approaching 90 miles per hour.
Malan's riposte included four fours in one Pat Cummins over - two pulls, an off-drive and a cut - as he and fellow first-innings centurion Jonny Bairstow set out to replicate some of that success.
The cracks in the surface were evident by now, though, and England's batsmen had become hostages to fortune.
They must have had decidedly mixed feelings when, after an overnight shift in the weather pattern, Anderson began finding movement both through the air and off the pitch.
It brought him the wicket of Marsh, to the second ball of the morning after 464 deliveries had proved fruitless against Australia's fifth-wicket pair the previous day.
A disbelieving Marsh went to DRS after being hit in front on the back foot, but Chris Gaffaney's decision was marginally upheld by technology which showed ball hitting the very top of middle stump.
Smith's tour de force was done too four overs later, Anderson overturning an initial not-out verdict to the 399th ball the Australia captain faced following more than nine-and-a-half hours at the crease.
Starc was soon gone, in a run-out mix-up, but Tim Paine and Cummins pressed on again after the unfamiliar rush of three wickets for 12 runs.
Their stand of 93 lasted into early afternoon, and Smith only called time after Cummins became Anderson's third lbw scalp of the day and Lyon holed out off England's all-time leading wicket-taker.
Steve Smith and Mitch Marsh's triple-century stand piled on the Perth misery to leave England on the brink of losing the Ashes.
Joe Root's men mustered a solitary wicket on a grim third day at the WACA. Smith (229no) celebrated two centuries and fifth-wicket partner Marsh (181no) threatened to turn his maiden hundred into a double too on his home ground.
There was next to nothing, armed with new ball or old, that England's bowlers could do to even slow the process as Australia powered to 549 for four and an already ominous lead of 146.
An unfamiliar forecast in these parts promises disruption from rain over the final two days, but England will still have to excel themselves to avoid going 3-0 down in the series and losing the urn before Christmas.
Smith ensured one-way traffic almost throughout in his career-best innings.
He needed just five overs of a sunny morning to complete his century, so he could dedicate the remainder of the day to inflicting a second instalment.
Shaun Marsh's departure was an unexpected blip for the hosts, Moeen Ali responding to two leg-side fours for the left-hander by producing a perfectly-pitched off-break which took the outside-edge to slip.
Any raised English hopes were cruelly fleeting as Shaun's younger brother quickly announced himself in imperious form and full of determination.
It was a combination which allowed him to dominate even Smith in an unbroken stand of 301 as England became not only bereft of a wicket-taking threat but a method to arrest the scoring rate too.
Their plans appeared to lurch from one extreme to another, telegraphed by field placings.
Marsh was soon under way with a clutch of crunching drives, so England responded by going short to both batsmen after lunch to a leg-side field and no one in front of square on the off.
Still Smith found the gaps, and Marsh demonstrated he was at least as comfortable on the back foot.
He completed his century with a square-drive for his 17th four off Stuart Broad in the over before tea, sparking not only his own richly-deserved celebrations but that of his majority support all round the WACA.
Craig Overton, nursing a cracked rib after falling awkwardly as he tried to take a return catch the previous afternoon, found it especially tough going to keep Smith and Marsh quiet. James Anderson, arguably, posed the most credible threat.
If so it was purely relative, though, and no one even came close to breaking the epic partnership.
The Australia captain passed his 200 with 26 fours and a six from 301 balls, spread over more than seven-and-a-half hours, and Marsh was closing on the same milestone by the time stumps were drawn to allow the tourists much-needed respite at last.
In other news, England have made a complaint to match referee Richie Richardson about the process by which third umpire Aleem Dar decided their opener Mark Stoneman was out caught-behind on day one.
First Stoneman, and then Malan, were in the eye of a storm as the WACA of old returned, with all its world-renowned pace and bounce, and Australia's seam attack was in its element.
The opener was dropped twice in the space of five balls off Josh Hazlewood, both on 52 at slip and then gully, and hit on the helmet in between by the same bowler.
He stood firm until an initial not-out decision for caught-behind off Mitchell Starc was overturned on review by third umpire Aleem Dar on the basis of marginal Snicko evidence - much to England's displeasure.
They responded, however, with Malan and Bairstow's unbroken stand of 174 to grasp a belated foothold in this series, which Australia lead 2-0.
The stakes were raised in this crucial contest immediately after lunch, when Stoneman and Root bagged 20 runs in the first two overs and then Hazlewood and Pat Cummins unleashed a barrage of bouncers.
Stoneman was put down by Mitch Marsh when he edged a loose drive at Hazlewood and then took a worrying blow to the side of his helmet.
England's medics needed several minutes to check him over, but Hazlewood was in no mood to relent, and with his very next deliver he had Stoneman splicing another brute into the off side just short of Nathan Lyon, running and diving forwards from point.
Root was still looking assured until he went a long way across beyond off stump to Cummins and gloved a catch down the leg side.
Tim Paine was safe on that occasion and brilliant soon afterwards when Starc replaced Hazlewood and served up a snorter which may or may not have brushed Stoneman's glove.
It took more than five minutes to sort out the resulting confusion, although Dar's telling call came too quickly for many observers, not least Root who flicked the glass door of the dressing room in disgust as the opener made his way off.
There had been no such lingering doubts earlier about Alastair Cook's departure, pinned lbw in the crease by a fast and full ball from Starc as he failed to mark his 150th Test cap with worthwhile first-innings runs.
James Vince flattered, not for the first time, with a promising collection of early boundaries before becoming becalmed by Hazlewood and he had gone 17 balls without scoring when he pushed at one outside off stump and edged behind.
It was ultimately honours even through an afternoon session of thrilling, and occasionally frightening, theatre.
Malan would have been run out for 32 with a direct hit from cover.
But after Bairstow's dubious call for a single, David Warner passed up the opportunity to make it 155 for five - and in the evening England did not look back until Malan was dropped on 92 by Cameron Bancroft when an edge on Starc's first delivery with the second new ball flew to third slip.
He needed no further fortune before completing a memorable 160-ball century when he pulled Hazlewood for his 13th four.