It takes a $1.2 million titanium exhaust to make a Ford GT sound better.
The Ford GT is an amazing feat of engineering and a class winner in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Jay Leno found a way to fix that by installing a GT Mk II track car titanium exhaust system in his GT.
In a video on his latest restoration blog, Leno shows off the titanium exhaust system on his black and orange Ford GT. He also brought in Jason Heffner of Heffner Performance, who was contracted by Ford and Multimatic (the Canadian company that builds GTs for Ford) to build the system, to explain the details.
According to Heffner, the integrated unit weighs less than six pounds, about 30 pounds lighter than the stock system. It bolts behind the catalytic converter and features a high-flow X-pipe design. Listen to the beginning and end of the video. The sound is a significant improvement over the stock GT.
This exhaust system is shared with the Ford GT Mk II, which is designed specifically for circuit driving. Unbound by road car regulations, Ford added a dual-element rear wing, Michelin Pilot Sport slicks, and eliminated the road car's adjustable ride height and drive mode selector The 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 engine's output was increased from 647 hp to 700 hp.
Ford priced the GT Mk II at $1.2 million and limited production to 45 units. For comparison, the 2020 GT Liquid Carbon Edition road car is priced at $750,000, and Ford has allocated 1,350 production slots for the road-going version. At least half of those have already been reserved.
Aside from the GT's exhaust system upgrade, the video shows several of Leno's other projects, from a Pontiac Firebird to an older Detroit Electric being upgraded with the latest batteries from a Nissan Leaf.
