Ford Mustang Joins Thousand Horsepower Club

On this blog, we’ve had our share of thousand-horsepower Chevys, Vipers and even a Mercedes SL. Now, we can add a 2009 Ford Mustang to this exclusive club. The 2009 Ford Mustang featured here was built and tuned by Livernois Motorsports. Starting with a 358 CID aluminum block, Livernois added their own CNC aluminum heads, Stage 1C cams and custom pistons connected to Carrillo conrods. With the engine built to robust specs, Livernois added a Whipple supercharger and an Afco heat exchanger. Custom headers with 1 7/8-inch primaries and 3-inch pipes handle the exhaust duties. A Centerforce DFX clutch links the engine to the tranny, while an aluminum driveshaft spins the diff. In dyno tests, the car made 1,006 hp and 916 lb. ft. of rear wheel torque. Reportedly the engine already has 800 ft.lbs at around 2,700 rpm.

Suspension mods like adjustable coilover struts and shocks and BMR springs, control arms, braces and connectors ensure that the car does not get too squirrelly when the power is applied. The car weighs about 4,000 pounds so that would equate to a power-to-weight ratio of 4 pounds per horsepower. Performance calculations place 0-60 times of under 2.6 seconds and it has actually run the quarter-mile at 9.93 on its 20-inch wheels. With this kind of horsepower and torque, the driver of this car would have to exercise a fine degree of control, otherwise it’s a recipe for getting in over your head.

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Jet Boats Offer Supercar Performance In A Tiny Package

One of the more fascinating forms of motorsport is jet boat racing, which has a large and popular following in Australia and New Zealand. As you can see from the picture above, these boats are just large enough to fit an engine, cockpit, the jet drive and not much else. This particular boat is owned by current champion Peter Caughey and is powered by what is called the world’s largest small block. At 540 cubic inches (or 8.9 liters of displacement), this all-aluminum engine sports Kinsler fuel injection, billet aluminum heads, MSD ignition, custom exhaust, a 5-stage dry sump system and Motec telemetry. Performance calculations officially place output at 900 horsepower but it is reportedly nearer 1,000.

This engine powers a water jet drive unit that features 2-stage axial flow impellers in an aluminum housing. Thrust is rated at 1200 pounds and these drives can process process 300 litres, or 83 gallons, of water per second.

The boat itself is designed for fast straight line and cornering speeds, with stability and lightning fast response to the right/left turns dictated by the courses the boats are run on. 5G cornering forces are not unheard of and this boat incorporates a very low seating position for lower center of gravity and increased cornering speed and stability. The seats are made of carbon fiber composite with special foam inserts for extra spinal protection for the crew.

So, what can it do? Well, in can accelerate from 0 to 120 kph (0 to 75 mph) in 2.3 seconds while generating a force of 2 Gs and can take to those water courses with 5 to 8 G’s of cornering force. If that kind of performance does not get your blood up, you’re pursuing the wrong hobby.

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Sleeper Alfa Is World's Fastest Sedan

While flared and winged cars with matching performance are sights to behold, there is something about sleeper cars that are intrinsically devious by their very nature. A (very) powerful engine hidden in a nondescript-looking car has for a long, long time been the bane of unsuspecting victims. The car featured here is the only one of its kind for a series that was supposed to be a front act for Formula 1 races. The original Procar series featured the BMW M1 and with its production run nearing the end, a new car/series was proposed with would have cars very similar to F1 cars of the day but with a body similar to road cars.

Manufacturers did not support this new series and only Alfa Romeo came up with a prototype racer for the proposed series. What you are looking at is the only car of its kind in existence. This Alfa 164 Procar was built in cooperation with the Brabham F1 team and so its powerplant is one of, if not the only Alfa Romeo V10 ever built. In fact, this car is effectively an F1 car with a production-looking body on top, where the front and rear clips are removable as one piece. The Alfa engine is a 72-degree V10 displacing 3.5 liters mounted longitudinally in the middle of the car. The naturally-aspirated aluminum engine produces 605 horsepower at 12,000 (!) rpm, giving a specific output of 173 hp per liter. Power to weight ratio has been calculated at .81 bhp/kg. This is enough to propel this 750 kilo racing silhouette to over 210 mph, with a calculated 0-100 km/hr time of 1.78 seconds.

The rest of the car features a carbon fiber monocoque, double wishbone suspension, a Hewland 6-speed transmission and vented discs at all four corners. If this racing series had pushed through, it’s pretty certain that it would have inspired a lot of sleeper road cars.

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Twin Supercharged R8 Gives Other Supercars Something To Worry About

Although does make pretty serious performance cars and manages to be dominant in the motorsport classes they involve themselves in (WRC in the 80s, AWD Audi 80s in track racing and currently in endurance racing with their diesel prototypes), they don’t have the same cachet as a, say, Porsche or Ferrari. But if German tuners like PPI continue to do what they do with Audi’s R8, that perception will change.

PPI’s version of the Audi R8 4.2 FSI is an 800 horsepower beast that got its rating by having the German tuner’s B-CS kit installed in its engine. PPI claims that they are the only company to successfully combine a centrifugal supercharger system with Audi’s R8 V8 4.2 FSI motor. The B-CS kit is made up of two R48 bi-centrifugal superchargers with magnetic coupling to the engine. To handle the boost, 9.2 compression pistons, rings, connecting rods, bearings, and valvetrain were installed. Cooling the intake charge is a water-to-air intercooler in conjunction with a sport air filter housed in a carbon fiber airbox. This intake system is fed by a roof-mounted ram-charge system and an exhaust calculator would have been used to compute optimum exhaust flow to handle the spent gases. It goes without saying that the ECU had to be remapped to handle the new characteristics of the engine. The gearbox’s 1st and 2nd gears are strengthened to handle the 860 Nm torque rating and a taller final gear gives a higher top speed.

0-62 mph is accomplished in 2.9 seconds, on to a top speed of 217 mph. PPI claims that additional aero aids will improve top speed even further. With this kind of performance, all supercars should now be more wary of the Audi R8’s potential.

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Hyundai Veloster Racer Hopes To Capture More Than Trophies

Mention the name Hyundai and the image that comes to mind is one of cheap and formerly crappy cars from Korea that just borrowed technology from Japanese manufacturers. The fact though is that Hyundai has improved its quality standards but has yet to capture the imagination of the motoring enthusiast as a choice for a play car. Hyundai did commission a British outfit to build and campaign an Accent-based World Rally Championship contender but the company quit the program after a few years. Now, Hyundai is once again turning to rally-style motorsports to burnish its image and capture some mindshare. It’s tapped the considerable talents of Rhys Millen Racing to build up a Hyundai Veloster-based rallycross contender.

The race car is powered by an HKS-turboed Hyundai 2-liter four which, according to Hyundai, produces 500 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. It would be interesting to plug-in the engine’s specs into a performance calculator to see if the claims hold up, specially the torque rating. At any rate, additional components include an Xtrac six-speed sequential gearbox connected to an Xtrac full-time four-wheel drive system. Proflex coilovers give the Veloster racer the requisite suspension travel needed for rallycross competition. Alcon six-piston calipers and rotors reside behind the 18-inch HRE alloy wheels shod with 245/40-18 Hankook racing tires. Curb weight is 2,656 pounds, which gives the car a power-to-weight ratio of 421 bhp per ton.

The car is being squared off against the factory Ford Fiesta rally cars of Ken Block and Tanner Foust in the 2011 U.S. Rallycross Championship. Doing a creditable showing against the highly experienced Ford team should give Hyundai and company the confidence to expand their racing program and consequently, the user base which will influence sales of their production cars.

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Lingenfelter Camaro Shows The Way With 8-Second Pass

Partly due to the Transformers movie but largely due to its good looks and performance, Chevy’s 5th-gen Camaro is a very popular car with tuners and enthusiasts alike. It has found adherents in track and drag racers both and one of the tuners that has favored this platform is Lingenfelter Performance Engineering. This tuner has been modifying Chevy’s products for over 30 years, so when they set out to modify a 5th gen Camaro for the drag strip, it was with this 3 decades of knowledge and experience that enabled them to come up with a car that has more than 1,200 horsepower and 1,300 foot pounds of torque at the rear wheels.

Starting with the 6.2 liter LS9 engine as its base, Lingenfelter fitted 8.5:1 forged JE pistons, production GM LS9 crankshaft, titanium connecting rods, ported LS9 cylinder heads with OEM titanium intake valves and sodium-filled hollow stem exhaust valves, a Lingenfelter cam, GM LS9 Eaton TVS2300 supercharger and an LS9 dual-intercooled upper manifold. A 450 hp nitrous system, dry sump lubrication and an open exhaust fed by 2-inch primaries was also fitted. Controlling this potential mayhem are Lingenfelter-designed electronics in conjunction with Racelogic VBox III GPS data logging. A triple-plate carbon clutch and reinforced TR6060 transmission with stock 2010 Camaro gear sets drives the 9.5 inch diff with a 4.10:1 ring and pinion. 12-inch wide tires ensure a proper hookup.

With a race weight of about 4075 lbs including driver, the Camaro has done a best time of 8.9 seconds in the quarter mile. Horsepower calculations reveal that this car’s power-to-weight ratio would be around 709 hp per ton. Even with this kind of performance, Lingenfelter was able to retain the OEM stereo system and airconditioning. Today’s cars are really marvels of engineering. Only a decade ago, 1,200 horsepower cars would not have been able to retain these creature comforts.

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Road-legal Caparo T1 Is Hardly Legal

It’s ludicrous to call a track-dedicated car road legal when you can’t really use it for the road, specially with a clutch takeup as vicious as that of an F1 car’s. But the Caparo T1 is laying claim to the fact that it is the fastest production road-legal car in the world. The Caparo is a UK-built to order car that’s given up all creature comforts to give its driver the ultimate driving experience.

The Caparo T1 is built from composite materials, mostly carbon fiber. It looks like a cross between an F1 car and a prototype racer and can seat a passenger in a staggered configuration. The 350,000 dollar price tag of the Caparo is not the only frightening figure about the car. With its 3.5 liter V8 singing at 10,500 rpm to produce 575 horsepower, the 550 kilogram Caparo T1 boasts of an astronomical 1,045 horsepower per ton power-to-weight ratio. This makes it the first series production car calculated to surpass the 1,000 bhp-per-ton barrier. Instantaneous shifts are produced by the pneumatic gearbox actuator in conjunction with the drive-by-wire throttle.

Other frightening figures are 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds, on to hitting 100 miles per hour in under 5 seconds. 100 mph to 0 is achieved in 3.5 seconds. No sense in taking it out on a busy road then, because you’re sure to be rearended with that kind of braking performance. But the frightening figures don’t stop with acceleration and decceleration, because the Caparo T1 can pull 2.5g in high speed corners, thanks to its highly developed aerodynamics. This phenomenal performance envelope was achieved because the designers of the Caparo T1 were part of the original design team for the McLaren F1, which is today considered one of the greatest supercars of all time.

Source article can be found here. http://www.autoblog.com/tag/caparo+t1

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Unique Infiniti M45 Shares Drifting Experience

Whatever some enthusiasts may think of drifting as a motorsport, the fact is that it has grown to be a huge attraction for spectators and the build quality of the cars is on a level of the highest caliber. One unique drift car that has made waves is not actually used in drifting competitions but is instead a demo car, able to seat 3 passengers in what should be a unique and memorable experience. This car is the brainchild of 2009 Drift Champion Chris Forsberg, who conveived of the project car at the end of the 2010 season. Starting with an Infiniti M45 luxury sedan, Forsberg and his crew put the car on a diet by stripping the interior and installing a Seibon carbon fiber hood and trunk lid. The chassis was also strengthened and a unique roll cage was added, which took into account the passengers who would eventually be along for the ride. The whole package was then were painted white, including the carbon fiber components. Four Recaro racing seats were then installed to accommodate driver and passengers.

Obviously, a change in power was needed so Forsberg installed the engine and transmission setup from his 2009 Championship season 350Z, which is a Nissan VK56 V8 engine that was hijacked from a Nissan Titan. Surprisingly, the 5.6-liter VK56 is practically stock with the exception of Bosch 680 cc/min injectors and 256-degree S2 camshafts and upgraded valve springs from Jim Wolf Technology. The four cams in this engine feature 256-degrees of duration and .430" lift (stock is 232-degrees with .346" lift). The increased duration camshafts resulted in the powerband of the VK56 engine moving higher up the RPM range. In drifting, the driver is constantly running the engine near redline and moving the powerband up the rev range certainly fits the requirements of that particular driving style. A custom Hogan's Racing sheetmetal intake manifold tops off this otherwise stock powerplant. The reverse-mounted manifold (throttle body towards rear of the vehicle) uses dual Holley 52mm throttle bodies. A Walbro pump, Aeromotive pressure regulator and a Chevy LS1 coil pack make up the ancilliaries. Managing the fuel and ignition timing events is a BigStuff3 GEN3 PRO SEFI engine management system. This system is fully-sequential and offers full data logging capability. Horsepower calculations place the engine’s output at at least 360 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Completing the setup are DG-5 coilovers as used in the competition 350Z working with Tanabe 18X11 wheels shod with Hankook RS-3′s tires. This car is obviously a huge cost for the team but it is a measure of Forsberg’s generosity that he chose to build the car so that the drifting experience could be shared with the lucky few who get chosen to ride this unique car.

Bottle trick video

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Sagaris Racer A Step Up From Previous TVR-based Efforts

Launched in 2004, the TVR Sagaris is a departure from previous models in that it handles a lot better than its predecessors but still shares the traits of having high output engines in lightweight bodies. The Sagaris is intended to be an extreme, track-biased vehicle and the car’s looks are a consequence of the aerodynamic lessons gained with TVR's Le Mans project. The Sagaris’ styling has been further refined in the wind tunnel and as a result, some teams have seen promise with the car for use as a dedicated race car. One of these is Team Holden, which has been campaigning TVRs for years and built up a Sagaris to partner with its TVR Tuscan race car. Compared to the TVR Tuscan, the Sagaris has vastly improved aerodynamics and a wider front and rear track.

Like the original model, the race car is constructed with composite bodywork over a steel chassis. Glass reinforced plastic (GRP) is mostly used, with some panels constructed from carbon fiber or carbon/kevlar composite. The engine is a 4.5 litre 75 degree V8 with an output of 450 horsepower and a torque rating of 380 ft/lbs. Transmission is a 5 speed manual gearbox with a limited slip differential. The front and rear suspension is composed of unequal length wishbones, coil springs and 3-way adjustable Ohlins shocks. 13-inch front and 11.8 inch rear disc rotors ensure proper braking. Wheels are 18 inchers shod with Dunlop racing slicks.

With this combination, the team’s performance calculations anticipate 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds, 0-100 mph in 6.9 and a maximum speed in excess of 190 mph depending on the gearing. Team Holden expects the Sagaris racer to be up to 2 seconds a lap faster than their Tuscan over the track on which they race.

TVR Sagaris promo video

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McLaren F1 Still An Awesome Supercar Decades Later

Exciting as the launch of the new McLaren MP4-12C may be, it’s worthwhile to remember the McLaren F1 GTR, which at the time of its launch was the ultimate supercar. A central driving position, fanatical emphasis on removing unnecessary weight and a 600-horsepower V12 engine ensured that this roadgoing car would have no equal. Designer Gordon Murray’s McLaren F1 was never intended to be a racing car. It only saw competition because customers insisted on racing the F1 and McLaren obliged these customers by preparing several LM variants for the 1995 season. Changes to the car were mainly to comply with mandatory safety requirements, more weight reduction and improving aerodynamics by adding a rear wing. Performance calculations for the race car would indicate a much better power to weight distribution than the road car's .59 BHP per liter.

Reportedly, the V12 engines from BMW used stock internals throughout the first season of racing. With this setup, the LM-GTRs dominated races for production based GT cars. Seven examples were then entered in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the competition included purpose-built prototype racing cars which afforded stiff opposition.

This McLaren F1 LM-GTR Tokyo Ueno Clinic that conquered LeMans in 1995 was driven by the driving team of Masanori Sekiya, JJ Lehto and Yannick Dalmas. On its the first attempt, the car won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and to add insult to injury, the car was sponsored by a Japanese dental clinic. The McLaren F1 GTR's racing domination ended when Porsche and Mercedes-Benz started fielding true racing cars in the McLaren's class. The F1 GTR’s 1995 win at Le Mans was probably the last one for a road car based machine.

First lap of the 1995 Le Mans in the Ueno Clinic Mclaren, which would be the eventual winner.

Winning at Zuhai, China in 1995

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