Heffner Performance

There have been two cars. The first is a 2004 Gallardo coupe. Prior to having one of our bolt on systems installed by one of our installers the car was run with nitrous for several years. The system was installed, dyno'd and everything was OK. The owner took the car to an event in Utah which included two track days for him at Miller Motorsports Park and a 1,200 mile very "spirited" drive through the mountains and canyons in Utah. The two track days and the first day of running hard through the mountains went very well. On the morning of the second day, the owner stopped for gas. He noted that the car ran great up until he fueled up and that once he filled up on gas and that under wide open throttle since filling up, there was audible detonation. Despite the fact that there was audible detonation he chose to continue to drive the car in the same "spirited" fashion for the next one hundred fifty miles until he stopped for lunch. I advised him to not run the car hard again until all of the fuel was run out of the car and he could fill up again. Unfortunately by then it was too late. The bearings had been damaged and the next day the engine expired. The second is a V8 R8. The installer, which is not one of our authorized installers, connected the vacuum lines to the wastegates incorrectly which caused the car to overboost. Instead of opening the wastegates to regulate boost it forced them shut. Instead of six pounds of boost, it made about twenty five. Fortunately this only resulted in a broken ring and did not fail catastrophically. I really hope that I have provided adequate information. If you would like to give us a call or even perhaps come and visit us one day I will of course be happy to answer any questions that you have. For now, I ask that we move on and get this thread back on topic, which is Joe's awesome Verde Ithaca Twin Turbo LP560. Oh, yeah. The cosmetic enhancements. While the car was here we had the wheels stripped and powdercoated gloss black. Once they were done we mounted a set of TOYO R888's for a little extra grip as well. We painted the calipers Verde Ithaca and installed black Lamborghini logos. The front bumper was painted in LP570 fashion, gloss black on the bottom. Before applying the black paint we placed one of our decals on the left front of the bumper, sprayed the black then removed the decal. This left our logo appearing in the factory color. The bumper was then clear coated, wet sanded and buffed. I think this is a very nice touch. The windows, tail lights and marker lights were tinted which I think tied it all together very nicely. When it was all said and done I feel that Joe is going to end up with a very tastefully done, impressively fast car. I hope you guys like it.

Yes. And after examining the engine and determining the cause of the issue we still feel confident in the ability of these systems to perform reliably. The number of cars on the road around the world that are running flawlessly with these systems reinforce that confidence. There are always anomalies. Years ago if someone would have mentioned the thought of running 12.5 compression in a naturally aspirated format it would have seemed crazy. I'm not sure I see the point in your question. I suspect that you are trying to illustrate that a car can have an engine failure with a turbo system on a stock engine. You are absolutely correct. Even stock cars, as you have mentioned, can have failures. You had mentioned that you read about a stock V10 R8 that had a connecting rod fail. I hardly think that Audi should feel any less comfortable producing R8's because of this.

The majority of our testing on the Bosch ecu cars has been on road courses and mainly with the V10 and V8 platforms. I have found that the majority of our Lamborgini customers don't spend much time with them at their local road course. Our first V10 R8 TT was a dedicated road course car which saw track use about every other weekend for roughly a year. I have had a couple of my own personal V8 R8 TT cars at numerous road courses such as Miller Motorsports Park and Virginia International Raceway .Throughout our testing with these cars on road courses we have learned a lot that I feel helps keep our products operating reliably, especially in other countries where owners have the potential to run the cars much harder on a regular basis than we do here in the states. I am of the feeling that once your car is approaching the 1500 whp mark, you are heading into race car territory. I'm not saying that it is necessarily classified as a race car because of the amount of power you have on tap but do feel that at some point you have to maintain the car differently and it may become expected to have more frequent component failures. With that in mind, we have spent a lot of time over the past few years developing systems that can be installed and maintained through our dealer network, provide a significant, reliable, power increase over stock and have a reasonable level of expandability should the owner decide that they want more. In the event that we have a customer that wants to build a race car and go racing, such as Peakcompletions 2,200+ whp Ford GT, we are always happy to oblige and have been quite successful with those efforts. With all of that said, it shouldn't be long before we see a frantically composed update from Joe on his thoughts on the green machine. The car is headed to New York as we speak.

The rods are quite similar. I will reach out to Mahle to get some more detailed information on the earlier pistons. The crankshafts are considerably different as are the block and heads.

Your concern is certainly valid. I have also heard of numerous stock 04 - 08 Gallardos having engines fail as well which is exactly why we can not guarantee an engine that we did not build. To be fair, for every stock V10 R8 or LP560 that suffers this type of failure there are thousands that do not.

I the midst of all of that typing I forgot to mention that the pistons in these engines are not cast. They are forged from 4032 aluminum. As far as connecting rods go I feel that it is worth explaining that connecting rods generally fail for one of two reasons. The first being excessive rpm. Since we are not raising the operating rpm range of the engine with this turbo system, we are not inflicting any additional rpm related stress on the connecting rods. The second common reason for failures is excessive cylinder pressure. In some instances you can actually force so much air into an engine that you fold the connecting rod in half. At less than ten pounds of boost, we are nowhere near being in danger of this. I hope that this alleviates some of the concerns regarding rods and pistons.

LPOZ, the retail cost for this system, installed, tuned and ready to go is $39,000. We have sent a handful of our systems to Australian installers over the past few months and they have all gone very well. Your installer should be able to help with any information on this system and of course you should always feel free to contact me directly. I'm always happy to help. BruteForce570, I must say that I am impressed with your ability to spot the details. We put a lot of effort into ensuring that these systems continue to function properly for the long haul. In addition to covering all of the water, oil and vacuum hoses in a thermal sleeve, we have also incorporated water cooled wastegates into this system. This car will in fact top the 1200 whp mark once we complete phase two. For now it's going to head back to New York for a couple of months (more likely a couple of weeks, knowing Joe) so Joe can enjoy some of the good driving weather that they have headed their way. I'd be quite happy to discuss any and all details of this system with you. If you'd like, pm me your contact info and I'll give you a call. Liquid, thank you. I'm glad to hear that you have enjoyed seeing how it all comes together. S-351, everyone has limits to their liability. The limits of our liability end with covering repair costs for failures that are not caused by our product to items that were not purchased or built by us. I, as well as many other shops, can sell you a number of items that may void your factory warranty and increase the power output of your engine and not be liable for an engine failure. I sell exhaust systems for cars as well. These exhaust systems provide an increase in power. Many dealers will void your warranty on certain cars for modifying the exhaust. Am I confident that your engine can handle the increase in power that the exhaust system provides? Yes. If your engine fails sometime after we have installed an exhaust system on your car, the dealer won't warranty it because the exhaust has been changed and there are no signs that our exhaust system or installation has caused your engine to fail, will we buy you an engine? No. Audi has recently announced that all cars that are brought into their facilities may have the engine control modules read and that warranties will be voided on cars that have modified engine calibrations. If someone sells you an upgraded engine calibration that increases the power output of your engine, which you are aware will void your warranty, and sometime down the road a connecting rod snaps, will you expect the provider of the calibration to cover it if there are no signs that their calibration caused the damage? If so, you may want to consider not doing such an upgrade to your car. What if the transmission or clutch fails on one of these cars? I think anyone could quite easily say that the additional horsepower could have contributed to the failure. Will any provider of turbo systems for these cars warranty your stock transmission if it fails? I doubt it. Many do however sell upgrades for the transmissions that reinforce parts that are the most likely to fail and will warranty the upgrades that they sell you. We do also offer complete engine packages. If the factory internals are a concern to any customer, we can do a fully built engine with upgraded pistons, connecting rods, valves, valve springs, retainers etc. that we will indeed warranty in the event of a failure, provided the engine has not been used in a neglectful manner. When you send your car to a tuner to be upgraded it is important to comprehend what you are getting and make sure that you get what you want. If you are buying a turbo system, you get a turbo system, not an extended powertrain warranty, not a new car, not a new engine, not a new transmission. If you want a new engine and a new transmission and the warranties that come with these items, they are available for purchase. It is important that anyone upgrading a car understands the potential risks that are associated with the upgrades that they are doing. I speak to some people that choose to wait until their factory warranty expires prior to performing any upgrades. On the other hand, we also receive cars on a regular basis that are shipped straight to us from the dealership. We as well as other similar businesses cater to a number of different types of people with different mind sets. There are many niches within this niche market which is why we offer a number of options to choose from. Joe, again, I can't thank you enough. The truck will be here this morning and to you by the weekend. As always it has been a great pleasure to work with you and I look forward to getting phase two underway. We got a lot of great pictures of the car yesterday. We'll go through and pick out the really good ones and post them up. Ray, thanks. It's been a little while. Let's catch up soon.

In the event of a failure where there is no evidence that points toward a tuning defect or turbo system related cause, no. We do also offer fully built engines with billet connecting rods, lowered compression, higher boost and more power. It has been our determination that the internal components of this engine are more than adequate to handle this and have been tested to an even higher level than what we release in a warrantied production system.

Yes, there are recirculating diverter valves under the intercooler.

S-351, those are valid concerns though not any more valid than on any other engine. If a car is tuned properly, you won't be relying on knock sensors to save your engine. If it's not tuned properly, say someone was to just leave the stock calibration and rely solely on knock sensors to remove timing when it detonates, your probably going to blow it up regardless. The pistons are very nicely done pieces made by Mahle. Lots of material above the ring land, coated skirts, very robust. The rods have been used in numerous bolt on applications as well as a few higher horsepower applications with lowered compression and have proven to be capable of handling the power. So when I say that I feel comfortable, it's not based on a theory that makes me feel like it should be OK. It's based on testing, experience and numerous cars being run very hard for a long time without fail. We do warranty the engine against tuning defects. If the engine fails and it is apparent that the car was running too lean or knocking as a result of improper tuning, we will cover it. If your engine fails because you ran it half empty on oil, we won't cover it.

Thanks for all of the positive comments. It was a lot of fun to see this system come together. Our quoted numbers are rwhp. We do ship systems worldwide, provided that we can verify that there is a reputable installer available. These systems are not for the driveway installer.

Next, we fabricate the intercooler. We started with a core that is large enough to handle double what we are making in bolt on trim. We fabricated an air discharge end tank that will not restrict the air charge and will compliment the factory intake manifold nicely. Then the air inlet end tank and air charge pipes are fabricated. Once all of the fabrication is done, it's time to remove all of the parts for final finishing. The hot side received a 2000 degree black ceramic coating from Jet Hot. The cold side piping received a black wrinkle finish that looks just like the factory finish on the intake manifold for that OEM appearance. We machined a billet cover for the intercooler with our logo and raised lines to give an appearance that looks like it rolled out of the factory like this. The finished product turned out incredibly well and clearly shows the passion that our team has for the fine art of automotive tuning. I'll get to work on some of the video footage that we've put together as well as dyno sheets and get them us as quickly as possible.

Kisco, I do feel completely comfortable with these engines at the 800 whp mark on pump gas. It is important to understand the benefits of direct injection to fuly understand how this is possible. On a normal port injected car, fuel is injected into the intake runner and goes into the combustion chamber significantly before the piston reaches top dead center. If the combustion chamber temperature is high enough, the fuel will ignite before the spark plug fires which creates the term that we know as "detonation". On a direct injected engine, the fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber a very short time before the spark plug fires at a much higher pressure. This gives the fuel a better atomization, more efficient combustion and significantly reduces your chances of detonating the engine. Of course, in the event that you meet the conditions required to create detonation, the knock sensors are there to compensate immediately.

We began with locating the critical components. Exhaust tips can only go in one place so we located them first. The guys at TIAL provided us with a pair of custom billet wheeled ball bearing turbos that will happily support 1400 whp. We chose to go with 3.5" tubing for the downpipe. As I stated earlier, we wanted cool fresh air going into the turbos so we located the air inlet plumbing next. This pretty much dictated where the turbos needed to go so we made a temporary fixture to hold them in place while we connected the dots. We fit the bumper support on to make sure we had adequate clearance and plumbed the rest of the exhaust. The completed downpipe came out to be a very clean, unrestrictive piece. Then we went on to plumbing in a pair of TIAL 44mm MVR wastegates. We took the time to make sure that the exhaust flowed out of the mid pipe and back into the downpipe smootly. This makes for very predictable boost control.

All of the factory components that will not be used were removed from the car and it is ready to have a turbo system built for it. The main things that we wanted to consider when laying this out are: Component location. We wanted to keep the hot parts away from the cold parts. We wanted the intercooler away from the exhaust and wanted the air inlet plumbing to be able to take in fresh, cool air. Overall function and expandability. We selected tubing diameters, intercooler core and turbochargers that would function very well at the bolt on level as well as perform efficiently when the car comes back to get turned up. Appearance. We felt that the completed system should look like it belongs on the car. We wanted it to have the appearance of a factory installed system rather than stand out as something that was made in the aftermarket. Drivability and reliability. All of our Audi R8's and LP560's that are factory equipped with Bosch electronics and direct injection are tuned through the factory engine controller and are still fueled through the direct injection system. The factory Bosch electronics system is really an incredible feature. It has full time, active wide band oxygen sensors, full time, active knock control as well as a number of other important safety features. This means that if you happen to fill up your tank at a gas station that has low quality fuel, the knock sensors will detect the detonation and remove the necessary amount of ignition timing to prevent you from damaging your engine. The wide band oxygen sensors constantly monitor your air / fuel ratio and based on their readings the engine controller immediately compensate for any changes in fueling requirements. If something is to happen that the engine controller can not compensate for, it will close the throttle bodies and trigger a fault code to direct you in the area of the issue. The retention of the direct injection, especially in a bolt on configuration, is essential for the prevention of detonation. The direct injection system introduces fuel into the combustion chamber precisely before ignition. This makes it very difficuly to detonate the engine. If there's no fuel in the engine early enough to preignite, it makes it hard to create detonation. This is incredibly important when you are working with an engine with a 12.5 to 1 compression ratio on pump gas and applying boost. Not every manufacturer of turbo systems for these cars retains these factory systems. Here is the blank canvas, ready to be painted.

The first thing that we did was get the car on the dyno to get some baseline power figures.

Most of you here know who Joe is. You also know his amazingly clean black six speed Superleggera that we built for him. Over the entire time that I've known Joe, he has loved that Superleggera like a member of the family. Unfortunately, as many of you have found, you can only stay in love with a car for so long before you start wanting to search for greener pastures. About two months ago, as much of a surprise as it was to us, Joe said goodbye to the old Super G. He felt that it was simply time to try something different as well as the reality that searching for and building a car is often the most exciting part of being a car guy. Before the Super G was even picked up, Joe had taken delivery of a gorgeous Verde Ithaca LP560 with the intention of leaving it alone. Well, that was until the first time that he drove it. I got a call within minutes of Joe's first drive in the 560. After having a 1250+ whp Superleggera, the stock 560 was simply unacceptable. Within the next week and a half, the car was headed to Florida. Joe and I spent a lot of time discussing what he wanted out of this car in terms of aesthetics, power and drivability characteristics. Being that the good driving weather in New York was just around the corner and the car couldn't be tied up for months. We decided to build the car in two phases. We got the car in and immediately began working on an entirely new turbo system, being mindful of what the end goal was. We spent countless hours planning every detail of this new system in an effort to give it an OEM quality appearance, fit, finish and at the same time, be technically superior to all existing systems. We also discussed a number of cosmetic changes to this car with the goal being to give this car a unique personality in the most tasteful manner possible. I will put together and post a detailed documentation of this build with pictures, dyno sheets and some video. I hope that everyone will be able to appreciate what we've put together here and I would like to thank Joe for choosing Heffner Performance to build him another incredible Lamborghini. Here is the car as it was delivered to us a few weeks ago: I will begin preparing the rest of the pictures and post them shortly.

We recently had the pleasure of installing our twin turbo system a local gentlman's 2011 V10 coupe. This is a really nicely optioned car with carbon splitter, diffuser and mirrors as well as ceramic brakes. The car turned out very well and the owner is now wearing a permanent smile. I can't express in words what fantastic cars these are with a few hundred extra horsepower.

Very nice driving, Brooks. We can set up the two step in the AEM but you will have to be careful with the clutch release technique. I believe Bernard got a 1.6X 60 foot in his car a while back with just over 700 rwhp so it is possible to shave another tenth or so off. Any way you look at it, that is one impressive four thousand pound exotic. Edit: WOW! I just noticed the 2.6 second 0-60. Unreal.

A little over a week ago Wayne flew into Philadelphia to pick up his new 2012 V10 Audi R8 Spider. As soon as he was handed the keys he hit the interstate and headed south to drop the car off for our bolt on Twin Turbo system. Last Monday we began disassembly of the car and strapped it to our dyno to get some baseline numbers. The car put down a very respectable 495 whp which is about ten more than previous V10 R8's we've seen in the shop. At this point the front heat exchanger has been installed as well as the majority of the turbo system. I will post further updates as the installation nears completion.

That is definitely my favorite LP560 of all time. We are building a 2011 R8 spyder for him as well. I'll post some pics of that in the R8 section.

Thanks guys. The grey car turned out really well. Lots of fun to drive and a very classy color scheme. Something tells me that it's going to look better in red though.

Interesting. There was a point in time when the entire focus of our business was on superchargers. I was convinced that superchargers were as good if not better than turbos. This ended the the first time I went wide open throttle in our first twin turbo car. From that moment forward we never spent another minute on supercharger development. The turbo cars run cooler, make less exhaust noise, make more power and provide a greater range of flexibility. For the same money as this bolt on supercharger system we can install a bolt on twin turbo system. If you feel that the turbo system generates too much power, we can lower the boost and make supercharger like power. I'm not sure why you would ever want to, but a bolt on twin turbo LP560 can be converted back to stock in less than a day and a half.

Thanks guys. When we upgrade from the bolt on to the full build, the system does not change. We provide everything necessary to accomodate future upgrades so the only additions are the engine modifications and a new calibration.

A short while back we got a call from a customer that we had previously built a twin turbo Ford GT for. He said that he was thinking ablout a Lambo but felt that it needed a bit of extra power. The car was sent directly to us from the dealer for a bolt on system. The car generated just under 650 rwhp on pump gas and a bit over 850 rwhp on race gas with a very conservative tune up ( Because Dave drives like a maniac ). Dave decided to fly in to check the car out once it was done. While he was here he noticed that we were building the engine on another Superleggera that had a license plate from his neck of the woods. When I explained what we were doing to the other car he says "I don't want that guy to blow my doors off. Pull the engine out of my car and build it." I'll get some good pictures and video of chapter two for you shortly.