The Superformance Entries

Photos by David Sugg, Fred Daly, Mike Stenhouse.  Commentary by Mike Stenhouse.

The Superformance Mk III's

This year there are four Superformance Mk III's entered, all in the Classic American Class.

	The new Superformance Coupe piloted by Dennis Olthoff and Mark Ray.  See below for more pictures and specifications.
	The 1999 One Lap of America class winner (SP116) piloted by Doug Reed and David Sugg.
	A near twin to the Reed/Sugg car piloted by Clay Gould and Barry Naquin from Louisana.
	Barry Kline and Jim Roxbury from Minnesota.

The Superformance Coupe

	Front quarter view
	Rear quarter view
	Spy photo - on the back roads of Mt. Ulla, North Carolina just before loading it on the trailer to head for Michigan.  The first time the Superformance Coupe has ever been under its own power.

May 5, 2000

Dennis Olthoff drove to New York a couple of weeks ago to pick up the car. It was delayed in transport from Amsterdam for nearly a week and he did not arrive back in Mt. Ulla until last Saturday around noon, five days before it was due to leave for the One lap of America.  The car was beautiful, but not finished.  A lot of pieces remained to be fitted, including its first engine and drivetrain.  The car had zero development and test hours.  We rolled it out of the trailer, washed and waxed it, then rolled it into the Olthoff’s shop to be completed.

The engine and transmission had been running in the Olthoff’s Superformance Mk III as a test bed. The engine and transmission were pulled on Saturday and checked. Everything was fine. The engine went in Sunday. Bob, Dennis, Geoff Blandford (the Superformance engineer from South Africa who built the car), and Paul Whitlock (the Olthoff’s ace mechanic) worked long hard hours through the week to get the car ready and back in the trailer by 5 PM Thursday night. They left immediately for Michigan and arrived there on Friday. In route, they offloaded the car and drove it the final 200 miles to gingerman to get some miles on it. This is all the road testing that has ever been done on this car. They plan to change the rear springs to stiffer one before the event begins. Otherwise, its seems to be running very well. Dennis put in some very hot laps during practice today.

I do not yet have complete specifications on the car. What I do have is below. The engine horsepower and car performance are estimates from pretty accurate simulators. There was no time to test the car to get actual results. And where do you test a car like this anyhow?

Dimensions

Engine - Primary

TFS Twisted Wedge aluminum heads
OHV 2-valves per cylinder
10.2 to 1 compression ratio
Ford SVO aluminum 4-bolt main block
Bore x stroke 4.030 in x 4.00 in
Displacement 408 CID
Edelbrock single plane intake manifold
Holley 4-barrel carburator
Holman Automotive solid lifter flat tappet camshaft
Horsepower: 550 at 6300 rpm
Torque: 470 at 5250 rpm
Redline: 7000 rpm

Engine - Backup

TFS Twisted Wedge aluminum heads
OHV 2-valves per cylinder
10.2 to 1 compression ratio
Ford 351W production block
Bore x stroke 4.030 in x 4.20 in
Displacement 429 CID
Edelbrock dual plane intake manifold
Holley 4-barrel carburator
Ford Motorsport A351 hydraulic flat tappet cam
Horsepower: 450
Redline: Normally 6000 tpm.  Held to 5500 for this event as a precaution.

Transmission

Tremec T-56 (2000 Mustang Cobra R)

1^st     2.97
2^nd    2.04
3^rd    1.43
4^th    1.00
5^th    0.80
6^th    0.62

Rear End

Ford 8.8 inch independent rear pumpkin from 2000 Mustang Cobra R. It has trick hydraulically activated clutch system as locking device.

Final drive: 3.55

Tires

Front: 275/ZR35-18 Michelin
Rear 345/ZR35-18 Michelin

Estimated Performance - Primary Engine

Speed in Gears

Accelation

Quarter Mile

129 mph in 11.2 sec

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