The massive 7.0-liter V-8 engine is assembled in a squeaky-clean room that's appropriately dubbed the Speedlab. The motor is loosely based on Ford's NASCAR racing engine. It retains the Ford mill's deck height and bore centers, but the block has been redesigned and cast in aluminum rather than steel, a move that Saleen vice-president of engineering Bill Tally says saves about 150 pounds.
It's a pushrod engine with two valves per cylinder. That may sound a bit low-tech for a $400,000 car, but we're convinced of the packaging and low-end-power benefits that such engine architecture allows. Tally says the pushrod 16-valve layout is compact and permits mounting the engine low in the chassis. That also lowered the car's center of gravity and made room for a low-end torque-boosting tower of nine-inch-long intake runners.