(Photos: BlackSaltRacing.com) Yeah, you read that right. The car you see up there in the lead photo began life as a 1971 Triumph GT-6. It has since been transformed into a hellaciously fast land speed car that has the potential, the horsepower, and now the gearing to get to the magical 400mph mark. Campaigned by team Black Salt Racing, this C/BFMS (C motor displacement/Blown Fuel Modified Sports Car) classed machine has a twin turbo, alcohol burning small block built by Mike Moran that makes 2,000hp and now an 8-speed specialty built transaxle to feed all the power to the front wheels (yes it is front wheel drive) which will become important to the story in a few minutes.

The wheelbase has been stretched to 130-inches and per the rules of the modified sports car class, it has been highly modified from the cowl forward (obviously, right?). With regard to the passenger area, it has had the roof chopped some five inches. This is the first production bodied car (as defined by the SCTA rule book) to break 333mph and better than that….it has gone 380. Going by the telemetry you’ll see in the video below it has actually touched 387 before running out of gear. The recorded exit speed was 380 in 2012 though, so we’re going with that. If this car can reach 400mph on the salt this year, it will be a feat that’ll be forever recorded in the annals of SCTA/Bonneville Speed Week history.

So where is the extra 20mph going to come from at Bonneville? It is going to come from the four extra gears the car got the for cancelled 2014 and 2015 Speed Week events. That’s right, the team went from a four to an eight speed transaxle and that transition was not without its challenges. Working with Weismann Transmissions, the team developed the transaxle that had the gearing and the strength they needed. Mike Moran got the motor back, went through it, and it also went back in the car. Early testing began at the Mojave Mile in 2014. While it may seem weird to being a legit Bonneville car to a one mile event, this was potentially the smartest thing this group of smart racers did. Why? Because they exposed some issues with the transaxle that needed to be fixed. Specifically the differential. The issue was bad enough that the differential was completely redesigned and then reinstalled. The team then rented a runway (how bad ass is that?) and was able to test the transmission, short shifting seven of the eight gears. All went well aside from some weirdness with the electronic shifting controls they were using so they did some redesign work on that stuff as well.

The only salt time that we know of the car having was some test runs made at the USFRA test in 2014. During that test they made changes. Larger fuel injectors meant messing with the fuel maps and they had some other bugs to sort out. The transaxle was put to the biggest test yet and after being pulled apart post test it looked fine, so that appears to be sorted. Lastly, the team mentioned that the salt was soft and a best exit speed of 314mph left them a little disappointed as that speed is short of what they would need at that point to make a big number.  

All we’re going to say is that there are a LOT of people who would kill to run 314 in anything, so these guys are really conditioned to going fast and as you can see by their approach, this is no willy nilly operation. When pushing a car to the speeds that they are, doing it in the manner they are, making mistakes isn’t really acceptable anymore. This is not a 140mph machine. These people are looking to go 400 and it sure seems like they have the knowhow, gearing, and horsepower to get there.

The natural question though. Would it be more impressive to see this thing go 400 or a streamliner go 500?

You can visit the team’s website by CLICKING HERE

WATCH THIS VIDEO OF THE AMAZING 380MPH RUN FROM 2012 – YOU’LL RIDE INSIDE THE CAR WITH FULL TELEMETRY ON THE SCREEN!