Put an engineer with the vision to go fast without dirtying the environment, has the cash to make it happen, and a shop with the skills to do it and you get the Speedriven SL600. Owned by Bernie Towns, an engineer working for a natural-gas company in Texas, this heavy luxury car’s 5.5 liter twin-turbo V12 has been given a fuel and induction system makeover to make it produce 800 horsepower. The 1,000 pounds-feet of torque allows this clean-burning car to tackle the quarter mile in under 10 seconds. Top speed already exceeds 320 kilometers per hour but engineer Towns wants the car to hit 380 km/h.
The mechanical aspects of upgrading the car has been assigned to Speedriven and the project has reportedly received support from Mercedes-Benz USA in the form of an aero kit that will stabilize the car at the speeds it is projected to go. According to Speedriven, Bernie Towns the engineer can talk about things like CNG giving off 80% fewer harmful emissions than gasoline and other properties of the alternative fuel. The engineer and enthusiast also has the resources to calculate flame-front speeds, burr temperatures and other technical things necessary for the tuner to understand in order to properly convert and tune the car for CNG. Speedriven installed billet-wheel turbo upgrades, top-mounted intercoolers, full free-flow exhaust, and Speedriven’s ECU/TCU upgrade. The brakes have also been upgraded to deal with the triple-digit speeds the car is expected to hit.
Bernie Towns the enthusiast says of his inspiration, “So there I am, sitting at lunch one day and the people are talking about natural gas cars, and it suddenly hits me: we should convert the SL to run on natural gas!” So, with that thought in his mind Towns the engineer contacted Speedriven and the vehicle that has turned out is now a part of automotive history.
Original article here.
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