There are many crazy builds out there but a twin-turbo Ferrari F12 Berlinetta with turbos sticking out of the bonnet is something you don’t see every day.
The man behind this project is television personality and car mechanic Aaron Kaufman, who tuned this Ferrari for the Daily Driven Exotics YouTube channel. The project started in 2020 and after being delayed by the pandemic it is now fully back on track.
But let’s start from the beginning. The guys at DDE bought a used F12 Berlinetta for $300,000 and after driving it on a kart track they decided it needed turbos. As a reminder, the stock F12 is fitted with a naturally aspirated 6.3-liter V12 producing 730 hp (544 kW / 740 PS) and 690 Nm (509 lb-ft) of torque, allowing for a 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in 3.1 seconds and a top speed of 340 km/h (211 mph).
The problem with the turbo-fitting idea is that there is simply not enough room in the engine bay. In a video update from March 2021, Kaufman says that he was surprised that everything on this car was incredibly hard to work on. In order to fit the fire-spitting turbos, he needed to cut off the bonnet and relocate many components like the throttle bodies and charge pipes. While the packaging is tight, he managed to keep as much as possible in their original place, so the tuned car can be easily serviced. There is a video from March where he explains the process.
Fast forward to May, and there is another video of Aaron starting up the engine for the first time after the turbo fitment before he put the front end back together. While the car hasn’t been on dyno yet, the goal is for the turbocharged engine to produce around 1,500 hp (1,119 kW / 1,521 PS), which is a pretty serious power hike over the stock unit.
The latest update on this crazy project came on Monday, July 19, when the TT F12 (for twin-turbo) made its US debut at Santa Ana, California. The car attracted an audience and looked 100 percent complete. We found some footage from the event, showing the F12 moving slowly through the crowd while revving.
The sound is quite different from what you would expect from a Ferrari grand tourer – partly due to the turbocharging and also thanks to the straight pipe exhaust. We look forward to seeing more action in a future DDE video, as we are sure they will put this beast to the test.
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As a final note, the DDF TT F12 is not the only turbocharged Ferrari F12 in existence. Back in 2013, Mansory launched a heavily tuned one-off car that claimed to be the first twin-turbo F12. This build has been heavily criticized in a video by Excell Racing which claims it is just a naturally aspirated F12 with a bodykit. Excell Racing also claims that their own twin-turbo F12 launched in December 2018 is the first one to be created. In turn, DDF questioned the rival build saying that it is completely different from their car with turbochargers located below the engine and that the process was not well documented.
We don’t know who is right and who is wrong here, but probably both tunes are quite interesting and demanding. What we would love to see is a drag race between the two rival builds from Excell Racing and Daily Driven Exotics. Which one do you think would be faster?
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