An audiophile and petrolhead's musings: in the hi-fidelity, first class, traveling set - Page 149

If I had a more than mediocre amount of talent with instruments, I would have went that way. Fact is, I was in 3 bands before I was 21 but didn't have the talent to make it beyond bars and parties, and rather than flail about in obscurity, I decided to take a different path. I still love playing though (can't sing very well), even if my hands grumble about it.

The whole owning Page's house is a weird thing, he lived there for like 5 years. It was his primary residence during that time, and parts of HotH and Physical Graffiti were recorded on the hill behind it, so that's a little chilling, really. He, Plant, and Bonham would jam for weeks on end in the living room... chilling is the right word.
Edited by Magick Man - 3/16/13 at 5:55pm

The Model T isn't my style of car, though at some point I would like to build some type of hot rod, maybe a `32 Ford coupe. I saw one with a blown Dodge V10 a while back and that was impressive.
Edited by Magick Man - 3/16/13 at 6:51pm

Looong post.


I was under the impression that buying a wrecked supercar and fixing it up is a bad idea, but that's not exactly true. Buying a wrecked Lamborghini and trying to fix it, while upgrading it, isn't the smartest thing to do, it turns out. You see, Lambos, unlike other makes, aren't "overbuilt" as much as many would think, or quite as much as they should be. The Ford GT didn't have those issues, it was so overbuilt and so well designed (40+ yrs of design into that single platform, FYI) that it handles forced induction (and 80-100% more torque) with minimal alterations, largely just a better cooling system and a more heavy-duty diff. I'm sure there's more, but those are the two major things.

Likely if I'd stopped at simply restoring it, things would have been great, at least for a while. Even the suspension, exhaust, and drivetrain upgrades were fine. After reworking the heads, larger crank, billet hemi pistons, and more robust headers, we gained a solid 80-90hp. That would have been a good place to stop, but I didn't, and after adding 7lbs of boost (x2) lots of little things started going (warped 2 valves, broke a belt, seized the oil pump, etc.), until we finally snapped the front driveshaft (it's an AWD car), not deterred, we replaced all those parts with much beefier forged or titanium replacements. Let me tell you, titanium components are expensive (conrods, bearings, driveshafts, valves). Then, of course, the transmission had to be gutted and rebuilt w/ forged carbide-alloy gears, and 1300ft/lb two-stage, carbide-titanium locking rear differential and stronger clutch plates. To make this shorter, I'll just say that we could come close to rebuilding an Aventador drivetrain with what we removed, provided the part isn't already broken. The car ended up gaining ~60lbs, but that's not bad at all, ATC. My initial dollar estimate for the rebuild was off... by close to 75%, not counting the MoTeC EM system and custom fab work that my business partner did himself, which would have been in the 10s of 1000s of dollars. Underground Racing has a summary on their site of what they do to build a TT Aventador, and they're way off, at least in terms of something that will last for more than a few months. I sincerely hope they're simply omitting some parts for brevity, otherwise their customers are getting hosed.

However, now I can say, with a reasonable amount of certainty, that the Beast is sorted out (we're still working on a name). We don't have an AWD dyno, though we're getting one soon, so what we'd done was test with the front driveshaft disconnected, which worked fine, ATC. So we finally took the car to tune it at a friend's shop, making sure his dyno would handle it, of course (it does). The way the system in that car works is the power goes to the rear wheels, until there's slip, then as much as 20% of the power goes to the front to correct under or oversteer, so you always have traction, but it's not really like most other AWD systems (the Ferrari FF is similar). So eventually we worked up to full pulls, setting fuel/air and compression (staying within pump gas and E85 requirements), and we got a total of 1225whp and 1466 at the crank @9250RPMs. And it'll do it every time, all the time, all day long. We set-up multiple fuel profiles; street, sport, track, and valet (which is a slower throttle response and a 5500 RPM rev limit). In track mode, it'll go from idle to new redline in .5 seconds, and shift time is reduced by >30%. Surprisingly, we didn't ruin street driving, provided you set it to "strada" or valet, and the auto mode is still intact, and is even more smooth now. While we were at it, we upgraded the AC compressor too, since the factory unit was a little anemic. Though I'm not mentioning them, there were lots of little changes, but again, what the hell? If you're in for 90 cents, might as well throw in the whole dollar.

Today we went to the track, which I'll talk about more in-depth in a minute, and we also took the Ford GT for comparison. That's nearly 3000bhp from two cars. Seriously. We had some nice conditions today; 20C, low wind, lots of sun, so I was able to make the most of it. Times: 0-60mph in 2.17sec (w/ launch control), 1/4mi in 9.19 (GT in 9.4 dead, which is great for a stick), 1/2mi in 13.3, and on the big oval, I got up to 218mph according to readout (GPS claims 215) on the back stretch and still had 2700RPM to redline. I didn't go any faster, because the aerodynamics of the car haven't been modified very much, just a minor change to the front spoiler. Lamborghini says the top speed for the stock chassis is 225, so I still had a little cushion. The main thing to take away from it is the stability. It felt very calm, even over 200. When I backed off, it wasn't because the car felt bad, it was because I chose to (and my wife was with me). I'll feel better about it after I've had it longer and gotten more accustomed to how it handles and feels. It's a big car, at least in width, which for that type of thing is something it has going for it. The only fault all day was a little temperature problem after an hour on the road course, we can fix that, and fuel economy... which at high speed was down to 4mpg.

Frankly, the GT did every bit as well, though its RWD didn't feel quite as stable on the track. It has 90% of the grunt of the other at the same weight, so it's not a slouch at all. If anything, it felt more nimble at lower speeds (though it's not quite as well-mannered on the road). Both are truly awesome cars and we had an amazing time.




Edited by Magick Man - 3/16/13 at 11:35pm

It's actually 1466hp at the crank, 1225 at the wheels. Brutal acceleration, like nothing I've experienced before.

My wife brought up a good point, I do think it would look better in a matte black or gunmetal grey. Like the one this sheikh is posing beside:

Remember that `70 Mustang? 2 weeks. Or really, ~16 days. This will melt your melon, the bulk of that Aventador was finished in 20 days. However, it wasn't really as bad as it looked, since the tub wasn't cracked and they had one undamaged side to compare with (that makes a difference). They're some extraordinary guys when it comes to reconstruction, they truly are amazing. I'm going to take some credit, though. Since I started there, productivity has gone up 2 to 3 fold. Because I walk around praising or scowling, depending on the situation. Joy Ride (Seth) really busts his a** there and attacks every job with urgency, and he's practically fearless and will take anything apart (and more importantly, remembers how things go back together). I told him if he applied himself he'd make a lot of money, and here he's almost doubled his pay in 4 months. I couldn't be more proud of him. Rich and our new Euro specialist have nearly 40 years of combined experience with cutting edge materials (CF has been used in cars for >30 years) and performance, they can both tune a car by ear and smell (then you hook it up to the computer and see that they're always right), it's uncanny. The most important part, however, is that we're knitting into a family of sorts, and while some parts of it are a little dysfunctional, we all seem to understand each other.

I've had a change of heart today. After seeing the metallic paint in direct sunlight, it's truly incredible. They did a complete strip and repaint, and it's quite a bit better now than when it came from the factory. You'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) what can qualify as a proper paint job with Italian cars, the amount of visible orange peel on most of them is shocking. But most people ignore it because they're too busy looking at the body shapes.

It's a push-rod actuated suspension, so it doesn't follow conventional principals in acceleration and unsprung mass. While we did go with stronger coilovers, the rest is untouched, because it was far more robust than was necessary, from the factory (one of the few systems that was). That's one thing I agree with Underground Racing on, it's perfect the way it is.

I was also wrong about its weight, now it's 120lbs lighter. Part of that is because we removed the amp and subs from the back, it doesn't need them anyway. What fool would drive a car like that and cover up the engine sound with *thump* *thump* *thump*? But also because titanium is lighter than steel, by a good bit, and many of the panels we used are thinner, yet stronger, than OEM.