Quick poll: How many out there in reader-land would be happy with a $69,564, Whipple-blown Saleen S281 Extreme in the ultra-rare, nuke-flash-bright (and extra $5,000) Beryllium Clearcoat? All that Saleen style and a supercharger to boot-yup, thought so; we see many hands waving enthusiastically out there. Alas, four hands conspicuously not raised belong to Brian and Robbie Black, proprietors of Black's Automotive Group in Casselberry, Florida. These enterprising, speed-freak brothers have one of just a pair of '02 S281 Extreme coupes that were factory-slathered in Beryllium (the second was reportedly destroyed). They apparently decided its Saleen flywheel rating of 425 hp just wouldn't do.
Maybe they thought it was getting worn out because, with only 6,600 miles on the clock, the Black brothers pointed the singular Saleen a stone's throw down the road to the Longwood shops of Lamotta Performance for some short-block toughening-oh, and a little extra power. There, Jake Lamotta and Jay Meagher tore the unsuspecting 281 asunder and replaced its guts with sterner stuff. Though no effort was made to bump displacement, a Cobra steel crank went in with ARP main studs to serve bulletproof backbone duty, and it now gets spun via Manley H-beam rods and the same Mahle pistons and rings that reside within the Ford GT supercar. The reciprocating/rotating mass was balanced. Meanwhile the heads and intake went off to Champion, in Daytona. The heads were ported and the intake band-sawn in half, ported, port-matched to the heads, and magically merged back together.
With passages suitably free-flowing, all went back to Lamotta, where work continued with a set of Comp Cams XE 262 bumpsticks-in this case among the milder in Comp's fittingly named Extreme Energy lineup. These are ground more for torque and low/midrange power rather than the buzzy end of the tach. As things came together over a three-month span, 60-lb/hr FRPP injectors were spec'd, along with an SVT Focus fuel pump and a Kenne-Bell Boost-A-Pump. With fuel supply for the most part ensured, a 75mm Accufab throttle body and an SCT Big Air mass-air meter were added to the parts list to be sure there was plenty of air for the mix. Not wanting to mess with the Saleen's distinctive center-exit pipes, a 2.5-inch MagnaFlow cat-equipped H-pipe was deemed sufficient to help expel gases and no doubt deepen the exhaust note. For insurance, the factory clutch in front of the stock T56 six-speed was ditched in favor of a McLeod twin-disc replacement.
Now, you have to figure all this money wasn't spent just to run stock boost. Even so, the brothers were curious to see what that factory boost-reportedly peaking at around 10 psi-would do, so the car was originally tuned by SCT, also in Longwood, Florida, with the standard-issue blower pulley in place. The result was a stout 440 ponies at the wheels, probably about 80 more than stock. With that basic research out of the way, the Saleen 4.25-inch pulley was unceremoniously dismissed, and on went a 3-incher, resulting in a peak of 18 psi. Now we know why the brothers went to all those short-block efforts. Back on the dyno-after a suitable retune, of course-the extreme Extreme then put 501 hp and 500 lb-ft to the rollers, which the Black brothers admit is "a blast to drive." Yeah-500/500 are such nice round numbers.