MATT FARAH: Today on Tuned, I'm driving that.
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: This should be fun.
It's been 12 years since The Fast and the Furious turned a
generation of young tuners into fans of the big powered
Toyota Supra.
In those 12 years most of the Supras have been modified into
oblivion, while the kids who loved them have grown up to
work for tech startups or hedge funds, but they still
lust after big horsepower.
Only now, the cars don't just come from Japan--
some of them come from Italy.
In an unassuming warehouse surrounded by a pond, trees,
and industrial buildings not worth a second glance, you'll
find the workshop of the first person to add two turbos to a
Lamborghini.
His name is Jason Heffner, and his shop doesn't need a sign,
because his cars speak for themselves.
[ENGINE REVVING]
JASON HEFFNER: This car operates at
seven pounds of boost.
It makes roughly 800 horsepower at the wheels,
which equates to close to 950 horsepower at the flywheel.
I want to say in about 2003, we moved from superchargers to
turbo systems, and quickly realized that it was obviously
the way to go.
MATT FARAH: Now that you've experienced the sights and
sounds of the Heffner twin turbo Gallardo, let me show
you what it's like right here to do a pull.
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: The twin turbo Gallardo is like today's
modern tuned Supra.
In the late '90s and the early 2000s, the big turbo Supra was
the big thing.
You could make 800, 900, 1000 horsepower out those cars, but
they haven't made them in a while.
They're tough to find.
The Gallardo is great because, A, it's a Lamborghini, B, it
depreciates like it's not a Lamborghini, so you can pick
up a used one.
This is a 560, but you can get a used Gallardo
from '05 for $100,000.
And then for $40,000 at Heffner, you can add 800 to
the wheels and get it stuff like--
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: I remember another video that I said there was
nothing better than a V8 with turbo blowoff noise.
A V10 with turbo blowoff noise might be better.
[ENGINE REVVING]
JASON HEFFNER: It sounds good, it feels good, but the German
engineering keeps the car together.
It makes it a more reliable platform.
These cars hold up very well.
You have to be mindful of the big picture.
You can't let one aspect of the car exceed the capacity of
the rest of the car.
If we're going to upgrade the engine to a certain point, or
beyond a certain point, we have to upgrade the rest of
the car to be able to withstand where
we're taking it.
But generally speaking, the cars are very reliable.
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: Now, the reason I like Heffner is because he was
the first person to do this.
He was the first person to put twin turbos on a Ford GT, the
first person to put twin turbos on a Gallardo.
Hell, even in the '90s, this guy supercharged a Diablo--
who supercharges a Diablo?
And he built his name on the fact that that Diablo, which
is a notoriously fragile car, didn't explode.
If you're going put a $40,000 turbo kit on a $200,000
exotic, you want that reliability.
You want to know that you'll be able to drive that thing
without it blowing up.
And so Heffner does what he has to do in order to keep the
car reliable.
He drops the compression a little bit, he beefs up the
halfshafts and the clutch, if necessary.
It works, in case you're wondering--
it works quite well, actually.
Now I remember last year I drove a Gallardo by BF
Engineering, supercharged engine.
And at the time I said that a supercharger was better than
twin turbos on Lamborghinis, because it makes the power
everywhere, not just the top of power band.
That's partially true.
While the VF kit does make more torque at the low end,
there is something wonderful about the feeling of turbo
boost building and that sound that you hear.
You know, with a supercharged car, you didn't really
hear a whole lot.
It just sounded like a stock car.
It just went faster.
But if you're going to spend $40,000, isn't that sound
something you kinda want?
I mean, it's a--
[ENGINE REVVING]
JASON HEFFNER: Although we're primarily known for our work
on the Lamborghinis and the Ford GTs, we work on a pretty
wide variety of cars.
Basically, anything that somebody comes to us that
sounds interesting or challenging, we're willing to
take it in and give it a shot.
Over here, we've got a super performance Shelby Cobra.
This car is getting a 427-inch small block Ford.
It'll have full Motech electronics, Garrett GT30Rs,
and at 2,100 pounds will make somewhere in the neighborhood
of 1,000 horsepower when it's done.
Next to that, we have an Ultima GTR.
That car right now weighs in at about 2,200 pounds.
It has a twin turbo 5.4 liter Ford GT engine, as well with
Garrett GT30Rs, built aluminum intake manifold, Motech
electronics, and will have the capability of making close to
1,200 horsepower.
MALE SPEAKER: Is there any such thing as too much
horsepower?
JASON HEFFNER: Yes.
I feel that you cross the line between the right amount of
power and too much power when you can no longer go in your
garage, fire the car up, take it out and drive it around for
a day without having to worry about failure.
You need to be able to put the power to the ground, you need
to be able to drive the car when you want to drive it, and
with all of our builds that we put out for street
applications, we remain very mindful of this.
We want to send somebody a well balanced car that's going
to work every time they need it, and if someone wants to go
further and build a race car, we offer that as well.
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: Woo, that's a rush.
[LAUGHING]
It's like shooting yourself up with turbo boost right there.
This is like the Nikki Sixx of turbo boost.
He's doing lines of ants, and then he's just injecting boost
into his veins.
I think we're covered there, yeah?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
Cut.
MATT FARAH: Well, we've got some road.
Let's see what the first gear's like.
I'm just going to--
ESP off, [INAUDIBLE], traction off.
Let's just mat it and see what happens.
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: I'm not going to tell you how fast that was.
I'm just not.
JF would be very, very angry at me if I did, but you are
going to have to trust me that it was quick.