More Power Please

Jason Heffner grew up with a simple goal. "I just wanted to work on fast cars," he deadpans, which of course doesn’t answer the question of how this boyish-looking 29-year-old came to be modifying six-figure sports cars like the Lamborghini Gallardo and Ford GT.

Want to see a souped-up Mustang? We could turn up 20 of them by Friday. But a souped-up twin-turbo Gallardo? Until Heffner dropped us a line last winter, we wouldn’t have known where to look. In truth, after listening to him promise to deliver not only a twin-turbo Gallardo but a twin-turbo Ford GT to boot, we thought we had another crank caller on our hands. But in June, Heffner came through. You can read about the cars on the following pages, but in short, both laid down some giddy-fast figures.

Heffner’s shop is in Sarasota, Florida, but he began his career in 1994 working as a wrench at a Dodge dealership in Laurel, Maryland.

Heffner spent his free time tearing up local drag strips in a 1990 Mustang. He modified that car in countless ways, with cylinder heads, turbos, and superchargers. Eventually, he had it running the quarter-mile in under nine seconds. More important, though, that car was a rolling education for Heffner, as he doesn’t have a formal degree or a high-school diploma.

At 21, an age when most college students are facing the hard truth about getting a real job, the guy who didn’t finish high school got sick of being a routine car mechanic and opened a 1200-square-foot tuning shop in Glen Burnie, Maryland. He called it Heffner’s Performance.

His big break came in 1999 when a Viper owner liked what he saw in Heffner’s Mustang and hired him to supercharge the Viper’s V-10. Modified Vipers with superchargers and turbos are fairly common today, but seven years ago, Heffner says few had successfully boosted one. His blown Viper not only was fast but also didn’t explode at the drag strip. That success likely could have led to a decent business hopping up domestic cars like Vipers and Mustangs, but Heffner says he has a short attention span and gets bored easily. So in 2000 he took on a job that many shops would probably have turned down -- supercharging a Lambor­ghini Diablo.

Most tuners won’t attempt modifying the Diablo simply because a mistake could mean bankruptcy -- a new Diablo engine costs more than 70 grand. But Heffner made it work -- 700 horsepower without a catastrophic meltdown. Word spread throughout the Lamborghini community, which seems far more open to modified cars than the Ferrari crowd, and exotics started appearing at his door. The rest, as they say, is history.

Twin Turbo Lamborghini Gallardo
Heffner offers two twin-turbo packages for the V-10 Gallardo -- one wild and one that’s best described as outrageous. The wild one is the Twin Turbo 600 package that increases the peak horsepower to a prodigious 600 from the already formidable stock 512 figure. It uses a pair of water-cooled ball-bearing turbos that puff in a mild 4.0 psi of boost and two rear-mounted water-to-air intercoolers. The price, including installation, is $27,999. Why Heffner thinks $27,999 is more appealing to well-financed Gallardo owners than $28,000 is a mystery to us. He just laughed when we brought it up.

We tested the Twin Turbo 700 package, which -- obviously -- claims a power increase to a shocking 700. It, too, has the dollar-store pricing strategy at $54,999. The extra 27 large covers an engine rebuild. To handle the extra boost (6.0 psi versus 4.0) and power, the aluminum block is fitted with iron liners and lower-compression pistons (9.0:1).

The Gallardos and the Murciélagos we’ve tested have had four-wheel drive, which makes life at blast-off a wee bit difficult on clutches -- we’ve fried two of them during testing. So we were a little shocked when Heffner said our test car, which had the manual six-speed and four-wheel drive, used the stock clutch.

Expecting another meltdown, we decided to complete the initial acceleration runs by gently engaging the clutch and then standing on the gas. So we lined up, let out the clutch gradually, and punched it. The clutch held, but in a dramatic display of excess horsepower, this Gallardo did a four-wheel burnout that would make Don Garlits stand up and salute.

That was a fun surprise. Once we got the hang of feathering the throttle and keeping the tires hooked up, the Gallardo catapulted forward. It blew by 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, by 100 in just 7.5, and turned the quarter in 11.4 seconds at 129 mph. The only stock Gallardo we’ve successfully tested had the e-gear computer-controlled transmission that makes jack-rabbit launching difficult. It was a dog by comparison, needing 4.1 seconds to reach 60 and 12.4 seconds for the quarter at 118 mph.

We fell in love with this car. The throttle response was crisp and immediate with not a whiff of turbo lag, the engine howled its Italian music, and since Heffner hadn’t touched the chassis, the Gallardo’s compliant ride remained intact. It made the $229,999 asking price seem almost reasonable.

See Heffner Performance Slideshow Here

HEFFNER TWIN TURBO LAMBORGHINI GALLARDO
Vehicle type: mid-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe
Price as tested: $229,999 (base price*: $229,999)
Engine type: twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 40-valve V-10, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 303 cu in, 4,961cc
Power (mfr’s claim): 700 bhp @ 7900 rpm
Torque (mfr’s claim): 505 lb-ft @ 6600 rpm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Wheelbase: 100.8 in
Length/width/height: 169.3/74.8/45.9 in
Curb weight: 3,575 lb
Zero to 60 mph: 3.1 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 7.5 sec
Zero to 150 mph: 15.5 sec
Zero to 170 mph: 19.2 sec
Street start, 5–60 mph: 4.5 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 11.4 sec @ 129 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 168 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.93 g
*Base price includes all performance-enhancing options.

Twin Turbo Ford GT
Ford’s GT already comes with a perfectly good boosted engine. With a supercharger mounted in the valley of the 5.4-liter V-8 and blowing in 12.0 psi of boost, it makes 550 horsepower.

For those who think that’s simply a good starting point, Heffner offers a twin-turbo package that replaces the supercharger, costs $34,999, and promises a horsepower infusion to a monstrous 800.

The system uses the stock water-to-air intercooler, increases the boost pressure to 18.0, and does not require rebuilding the engine.

Unless you live in a deserted area free of cops, it’s almost impossible to experience what this transformed GT can do. In the typical stoplight drag race, you’re likely to get smoked by a well-running Camaro Z28. When the boost hits in first gear, the Ford is all wheelspin and smoke. This monster needs room to strut.

Doing our best not to grind the tires into rubber dust, we ripped to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds, 0.1 second slower than we’ve gone in a stock GT. It’s tricky to get a good launch.

There’s anxiousness in this car until it has cleared 60 mph. Once you’ve shifted into second gear and passed that speed, the tedium of feathering the throttle is behind you. There’s suddenly enough traction to floor it, and if the car could talk, we imagine it’d be saying, “Okay, let’s gooooo!” The ride was on.

As we floored the throttle, we glanced over at the digital speed readout of our test gear. The numbers were changing so furiously fast that they were illegible. Only after we cleared 120 mph did the uproarious acceleration slow enough that we could see how fast we were going. But still, the GT felt as if it were chomping off 10-mph increments every second.

We passed 150 mph in only 12.6 seconds -- 0.2 second faster than a McLaren F1. In 17.8 seconds the GT made 180, a stunning 2.5 seconds sooner than the McLaren.

We’ve never tested a street car that accelerated to 150 mph quicker than this twin-turbo GT. Even the Saleen S7 Twin Turbo, which nicks the turbo GT in the quarter-mile (the S7 does 10.9 seconds at 140 mph, the GT 11.1 at 139), is slower by a full second to 150 mph.

The kicker is that the GT would probably be even quicker if it weren’t for the tricky launch and a slight power delay that occurred after each shift. Heffner says the delay occurs because the GT momentarily shuts off the fuel pump during shifts. He has since modified the fuel system to keep the pump running.

Heffner Performance, 4396 Independence Court, Sarasota, Florida 34234; 941-359-0900; www.heffnersperformance.com.

See Heffner Performance Slideshow Here

HEFFNER TWIN TURBO FORD GT
Vehicle type: mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe
Price as tested: $188,344 (base price*: $188,344)
Engine type: twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 330 cu in, 5409cc
Power (mfr’s claim): 800 bhp @ 6600 rpm
Torque (mfr’s claim): 715 lb-ft @ 5200 rpm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Wheelbase: 106.7 in
Length/width/height: 182.8/76.9/44.3 in
Curb weight: 3,514 lb
Zero to 60 mph: 3.4 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 6.8 sec
Zero to 150 mph: 12.6 sec
Zero to 180 mph: 17.8 sec
Street start, 5–60 mph: 4.9 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 11.1 sec @ 139 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 165 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.93 g
*Base price includes all performance-enhancing options.