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Heffner Performance

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About Heffner Performance

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    Lambo Owner
  • Birthday 11/02/1976

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    http://www.heffnersperformance.com
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    Sarasota, Florida

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  1. Thank you, sir. Being able to work in a creative fashion like this is the reason that I went into business for myself almost 20 years ago. I'll let you know how it goes.
  2. That is a very valid point that I am happy to discuss. I agree that the front drive should only make a small but sometimes critical difference in terms of overall traction. When choosing the tires for a drag car, or any car for that matter, it is very important that the sidewall characteristics are similar from front to rear. When you run a radial tire in the front and a bias ply slick in the rear the car becomes very unstable to drive. This is because the stiff sidewall of the radial translates a large amount of any steering input given to the chassis. The soft sidewall of the bias ply slick causes the back end of the car to be more easily disturbed than a radial would. You end up essentially having a tremendous amount of front grip compared to the rear and when you go to give any steering correction any input you give the car becomes exaggerated. With this in mind I wanted to start with tires that were as similar as possible in the front and rear. Do I know that this is the definitive correct setup? Absolutely not but being the first to do this to one of these cars I wanted to pick a logical starting point. The next reason that I wanted to go right to 15s in the front is that ultimately I would like to test the car as a rear wheel drive only platform. As you said, the rear tires should be plenty capable of propelling the car down the track without any front assist. If or when we decide to do this, all I have to do is bolt on the skinny front drag wheels and take the front drive components out. There will be no need to develop new front end parts, test, setup, etc.. As far as the parachute goes, just so we are clear, this is not an aesthetic upgrade nor does it add any performance value to the car. It is a piece of safety equipment that is required by the NHRA for any car that traps over 150 mph. If it was our goal to only hit private track rentals we could definitely get away without it but sooner or later we will want to go somewhere that tries to go by the book. While most of the Lambos and GTRs you see running around are not completely compliant with NHRA rules, the track officials do appreciate you making an effort. Even more importantly I want to keep my customers safe. We will shoot to make this car go as quick and as fast as we can make it go. At this moment I feel that there are a few things needed to put a Huracan in the 6s that do not exist. Like I said in my other post for some of you guys to see a video of a car running a 7.85 and conclude that the next step would be a 6 second pass or it's a waste are clueless as to what it takes to get a car to make a pass like that. Only a few short months ago there were multiple organizations, some that have the financial strength of a governmental branch of a Middle Eastern country, trying to get GTRs to go from a 7.1x or 7.0x to a 6.99. There were literally tens of millions of dollars dedicated to spanning that gap. Now I need to just head out and smash that because I bolted slicks to a Huracan? LOL! With it being so close to Christmas I would urge those of you with this mentality to practice saying "Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas this year is a clue.".
  3. Sooner or later you will start to see these big power Huracans start showing up at drag events where you race each other in a heads up fashion. For the sake of establishing some realistic perspective I would love to see another Huracan show up on 19 or 20 inch wheels and a set of R888's and outrun this car. We should revisit this topic when that day comes.
  4. That pretty well sums up exactly how I feel. I have driven plenty of RWD cars on slicks and skinnies but they were mid 8 second cars at best. I'll let you know how it goes.
  5. As many of you have already seen, we’ve recently completed the world's first drag race specific wheel, tire, brake and suspension setup for the Lamborghini Huracan and second generation Audi R8. Initially I wasn't planning to bother mentioning it here, but there seems to be an incredible lack of comprehension regarding our client’s decision to dedicate this car to quarter mile racing, our decision to take the hardest route and go right to a 15 inch wheel, and how this package will prove to be an advancement for Lamborghinis for straight line competition. God willing, I might even help some of you develop a small understanding of why anyone besides Underground Racing even bothers to get out of bed in the morning. I won't hold my breath on that one. For more than half a century drag racing has been one of the most widely recognized forms of motorsports. Most of us have done it or watched it. Some of us enjoyed it and some decided that it's not for them. Either way is fine. Sadly, Lamborghinis have never really been able to shine at the drag strip, which I guess is fine since they really weren’t designed for it. Fortunately, they’ve been able to shine in other areas, so it’s been easy for the Lamborghini community to hold their heads up high and still have plenty of ammunition for smack talk while GTRs have owned drag racing over the past few years. Thankfully the car Gods finally gave us what we have all been praying for, the Huracan. This all-wheel drive platform coupled with a V10 and dual clutch gearbox could make the brand relevant in a widely recognized sport that had previously mocked it. Some of you are asking "Why should we care?" or "Why waste a Huracan by dedicating it to a sport that I find less than exciting?". Well, try to imagine having built a life for yourself where cars like this are merely toys. Imagine that it's not your one and only exotic car. It's one car out of a massive collection, and if you wanted to have a different purpose-built Huracan for each day of the week, you could. The toughest one is to imagine that this life that you have built for yourself affords you the ability to do what you want, when you want, to whatever car you want without the slightest bit of concern over what the guys on a forum will think of what you have done. Really, if you must blame someone for this madness, blame Peter Blach. Our client had so much fun at last year's TX2K event drag racing the car that before we even left the event he decided that we must dedicate one of the cars to doing just this. Sure, he has a GTR that is already really impressive at the drag strip, but it just doesn't excite him the way the Lambo does. This also answers the age old question "Why not just build a Mustang if you want to go drag racing?". Well, he just didn't want a Mustang. He wanted a Huracan. Now on to why we put in the effort to go straight to 15 inch wheels. Quite simply, all of the good drag race specific tires are designed for 15 inch wheels. I will go as far to say that if you were to take your car to any shop and tell them that all you want to do is go drag racing, and they try to sell you anything other than a package that results in your car sitting on 15s, at least on the rear, take your car somewhere else. In order to make this happen we needed to develop new control arms for every corner of the car, new suspension knuckles and find a new brake system that would all fit behind the drag wheels. Even having in house CAD design, a full fabrication shop and a 5 axis CNC mill, this was not an easy task. What we ended up with is a brake and suspension conversion that many would consider art work. Considering the significance of the changes that were made should help you understand why I didn't feel responsible sending the car out on kill until we knew how the car will handle on four slicks. Since the car has to be piloted by a human being, which for the first couple of outings will be me, I felt it was a good idea to head out to test and tune, do a few launches, see how the car drives, make sure the brakes feel good, review the data, make sure everything looks good and get back out for some full passes not on test and tune night when the track was getting oiled down every 15 minutes or so. This isn't Gran Turismo or Forza where you just click "perform upgrade" and head back out on your imaginary race track and just like magic the upgrade is done. What we’re after here is something that can show up at events and run the number that it needs to run. Clearly with regard to the Huracan platform, there will be items that need sorting out or upgrading to accompany the need to go quicker and faster. I expect to see this car running consistently in the 7's shortly, and as time goes on we will continue to dial in the package and get more out of it. For now, there are certain ingredients to the recipe that will get us where we want to go and this package is definitely on the list. It is clear when I read some of the comments that for most of you pursuing quarter mile numbers has never been on your "to do" list. Many are even naive enough to think that quarter mile numbers come in one second graduations. You have no idea how hard tenths of a second can be to come by. "Well, last time I ran a 10. I hope I can run a 9 this time.". With so many big power Huracans and R8's out there running around I can't help but wonder why none are posting time slips to show off what you have run. I really would have expected that with all of the big power cars running around at TX2K there would have been a good handful staying for some drag racing. No sir. They were nowhere to be found. I will go ahead and make a prediction for what the future holds. Over the next year, you will see many more of these cars start popping up with very similar setups. When you do, and you see the new found level of performance that these car will reach the ones that are now saying what a dumb idea this is will be some of the first ones running around talking about how awesome a Lambo on 15's is for straight line racing. You will definitely not sit here and mock their accomplishments because they had to have 15 inch wheels to do it. I should clarify that by specifying that if I am the one that does something cool on 15's it will still be mocked but definitely not when the next guy does it. I can live with it. My client can definitely live with it. I have been for so many years. It kind of reminds me of when I built the first TT Gallardo back in 2005. Most people said that it would never live and that the platform could not support the additional power. Also like when we ran the first 8 second quarter mile with a Gallardo, or any Lamborghin for that matter. All anyone could talk about was "Oh my God! It has a dog box in it!". It was only a short while later that any Lambo that produced any sort of meaningful number was equipped with that same transmission. It then went from sacrilege to an innovation. If you still find yourself being bothered by what has been done here I can only suggest that you try some commonly used calming techniques, like reminding yourself that it's not your car. If the thought of installing threaded inserts into the quarter panel of a Huracan to attach a functional drag wing causes you to lose any sleep I can only advise that you do not do this to your car. If these tips don't work, you can feel free to pm me or give me a call and I will do what I can to help restore the calm in your world.
  6. Bravo, guys. I don't know about checkmate. I may have a few moves left.
  7. An 8.30 is really not all that close to a 7, if you were hoping to run a 7 at the current power level. However, when you consider the minimal power levels that these cars are running now and what is available to work with, I'd say it's likely to happen in the next 30 days on the long side.
  8. Well, I was out doing some fine tuning on the Huracan today and found myself cruising past Bradenton Motorsports Park. I noticed that there were a couple of cars conducting testing so I stopped in and asked if they minded if I made a few passes. We had the car out last week and had run an 8.63 and an 8.65 but track conditions were pretty poor and the 60 foot just wasn't what we needed to pull of a really clean run. I made one initial shakedown pass just as i pulled in off of the street and ran an 8.82. I headed back to the pits and iced down the intercooler and headed back up. This time the 60 foot still wasn't right where I needed it but ran a promising 8.68 at 175 mph. After making a couple of adjustments to the launch settings I headed back up and right away I knew it was on a good pass. The car left the line noticeably better than ever before and laid down an 8.300 at 176.19 mph. I fugured I would give it one more shot after that. Once again leaving the line with authority, the car was on a good pass. On the top end the car was feeling a little sketchy so I lifted a bit before the traps which killed the mph but the car still laid down an 8.304 at 170 mph.! I can't express how much fun it is to work with this Huracan platform. As i'm sure you can all see by how rapidly the times are dropping, the potential in these cars is huge. I'd really like to thank the guys from OB Prestige auto for choosing Heffner Performance to build these amazing cars, Ryan from Syvecs for his phenomenal support and Kris and Steve from SSP Performance for building us clutches that take whatever we have thrown at them. I will post the video shortly though I probably won't spend much time making an extravagant production. I'd rather spend those hours working toward a seven second pass.
  9. The Huracans are coming. I just submitted my paperwork for my GTR hunting license. A few low 9 second passes was a nice way to shake the car down. Now it's time to get down to business.
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