"It's an object lesson in the Doppler effect.  In the overcast dawn of an Ohio morning, the Corvette comes out of the corner as a small red dot, barely visible to the naked eye.  Within seconds it hurtles down the straight, the intensity of its big-inch small-block growing even louder.   As it approaches, the pitch of the maxed-out motor changes- waaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAoooooooooooow!!! - and in the instant of maximum intensity the red 'Vette flashes by on its way to the timers at the end of the straight.  As we watch the 'Vette disappear into the haze, a voice breaks the silence over the radio:

"First Pass:  One Seven Six Point Nine Five Miles Per Hour."

At first there is celebration in the pits.

Then someone notes, "He won't be happy with that."

The assumption is correct as John Lingenfelter greets the news with a thinly disguised frown...

"It should do better than that." John muses aloud.

-"MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE", by Jeff Smith
Hot Rod Magazine, Dec. 1988

We are sad to announce that John Lingenfelter, founder of Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, passed away yesterday, December 25th, 2003. John had been in a semi-comatose state since November 2002 when he entered into a coma during surgery that was necessary due to a racing accident in Pomona, California in October 2002.


John Earl Lingenfelter, 58 years old of Decatur, Indiana, passed away on Thursday, December 25, 2003 in Adams County Memorial Hospital.

He was born on October 6, 1945 in East Freedom, Pennsylvania, the son of the late Melvin Earl Lingenfelter and the late Ellen Emma Musselman. He married Cynthia S. Lingenfelter on July 9, 1999.

John was a member of New Beginnings Faith Center, Decatur; National Hot Rod Association (NHRA); Multi Time NHRA World Record Holder; National Corvette Museum (NCM); Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA); Adams County Lodge #127 Fraternal Order of Police; and a past member of Bonneville Nationals, Inc. (BNI).

He was owner and operator of Lingenfelter Performance Engineering in Decatur for the past 30 years. He also competed in Sport Compact Drag Racing with NHRA.

Surviving are his wife, Cynthia S. Lingenfelter of Decatur, Indiana, two daughters, Mrs. John (Kerri Ann) Page of Frisco, Texas, and Mrs. Jon (Kelly Jo) Kline of Decatur, Indiana, two grandsons, Jordan Ross of Frisco, Texas, and Jonathon Kline of Decatur, Indiana, granddaughter, Olivia Kline of Decatur, Indiana, brother, Charles Lingenfelter of Charlotte, North Carolina, two sisters, Mrs. Richard (Jayne) Longenecker and Mrs. Rod (Mary Ellen) Claycomb both of Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, stepson, Clayton J. Carroll of Decatur, Indiana, and stepdaughter, Leah R. Carroll of Fishers, Indiana.

John was preceded in death by one brother, Jerry Lingenfelter.

Funeral services will be held at 10:00 a.m. Monday, December 29, 2003 at The Bridge Community Church with Pastor Jerry Setser officiating. Interment will follow in the Decatur Cemetery.

Friends will be received from 11 a.m. -7 p.m., Sunday, December 28 at the Zwick & Jahn Funeral Home, Decatur, Indiana.

Preferred memorials are to Adams County Memorial Hospital Extended Care Unit or New Beginnings Faith Center.

Serving as pallbearers will be Chuck Griffith, Rob Vanderhart, Clayton Carroll, Joe Jolly, John Kline, Tom Cress, Greg Krauss, and Gordon Holloway.

Who Was John Lingenfelter?

John Lingenfelter has been building, racing, and winning with small-block Chevy engines since 1972, when he arrived on the drag racing scene by winning the Super Stock Eliminator class at the U.S. Nationals.  Since that time, he's been a frequent visitor to the winner's circle, building and driving winning Super Stock race cars to capture 13 national tittles.  His success created a state-of-the-art engine building facility, Lingenfelter Performance Engineering.  Many of today's top drag racers run a Lingenfelter-built engine, and, since 1984, he's been building high performance engines for the street.

John Lingenfelter's passion for speed really kicked in with the introduction of Tuned Port Injection on the Corvette in 1985.  A procession of progressively faster and faster Corvettes began to occupy his garage as John began to dig into the secrets of this 'electronic small block'.  Soon, his TPI 383 stroker small blocks were not only emissions legal, but could put a C4 Corvette into the low 13s / high 12s with just an engine swap.  At the same time, John Lingenfelter began to realize the limitations of the stock TPI system, and its inability to feed larger displacement engines.  His research on this subject led him to redesign the TPI system from the ground up.   Lingenfelter started with a clean sheet of paper, and totally redesigned the intake manifold, intake runners, and plenum.  His more box-like induction system was a success.  Where normal TPI motors ran out of steam at 4800rpm, the new JL-1 intake system pulled to 6000rpm and even higher.  Later, the system would come to be known as the "Super Ram".  John Lingenfelter began to grind camshafts for this Super Ram intake, the result of the matched cam and intake packages was port fuel injected power where no TPI system ever dreamed of existing.

Lingenfelter  collaborated with Reeves Calloway in 1988 to produce the engine for the Calloway "Sledgehammer" Corvette project.  Under the wrench of John Lingenfelter, the 355cid twin turbocharged small block Chevy that was the heart of the Sledgehammer Corvette produced over 900 horsepower.  After the engine was tuned, the car was driven from Calloway's shop in Connecticut to the Transportation Research Center, a 7.5 mile oval in East Liberty, Ohio.  Here, a top speed test of the Sledgehammer netted an astounding 254.76mph in 5th gear.  As a testament to the durability of one of John Lingenfelter's mills, the car was then driven from the track back to Calloway's garage.

In 1989, John's greatest attempt at top speed began on the Bonneville Salt Flats.  There, taking a '89 Firebird Trans-Am, whose aerodynamics he thought were superior to the 'Vette's, he managed to drop in a twin turbocharged 355cid small-block that was making an astounding 1400 horsepower!   John's goal?  300mph!   To this lofty end, John rigged up a set of six(!) nitrous bottles in the rear hatch area of the Firebird.  These nitrous bottles injected their charge not into the engine, but into the intercoolers for the two turbos, using the super cold gas as a cooling medium in the air to air capacity.  The result was that the turbochargers outlet air temperature dropped radically, far more than would have been possible using just normal atmospheric air.  This did some pretty incredible things to the horsepower output of the engine.  His first run in the car netted a 298mph top speed.   A second run managed only 293mph.  Soon problems started to plague the Bonneville trip, and with a mounting costs and no sponsorship, Lingenfelter had to settle for going 298mph, just 2mph shy of his 300mph goal.  In true John Lingenfelter style, despite attaining what no other normal man could hope to accomplish, he wasn't satisfied and thought that the car could have gone faster...  That is an example of the driving force behind what motivates John Lingenfelter.

In 1990, John Lingenfelter configured his red '86 Vette with full safety options and dropped a carefully prepared 408cid small-block that produced 540 horsepower at an unheard of 5400rpm.  He completed this car and entered it in the Nevada Silver State Classic top speed contest.  Despite melting both the TH700-R4 and the Gear Venders Overdrive unit,, John's 'Vette managed to post a 157mph average for the 93 mile course while maintaining a speed of over 206mph for over five minutes.   Placing 3rd overall, John was again very disappointed.  He thought the car should have gone much faster...!

From all of these experiences, and many more not shared, John Lingenfelter has accumulated a tremendous knowledge of engine mechanics and he uses that knowledge on every engine that leaves his shop.  Lingenfelter Performance Engineering has built engines for circle track cars, many drag racing classes, motor homes, off-road trucks, national champion SCCA autocross racers, and even powerplants for ambulances and law enforcement vehicles!  Taking these experiences as a whole, there are few small-block performance paths that John Lingenfelter has not tested, tried, and bested in the past 20 years.   It is this on-going experience and John's ceaseless quest to continually improve existing power levels of the high performance small block street Chevy that inspires so many others to reach a little further, work a little harder, and go a little faster.

If you want to know more about John Lingenfelter, or to gain some of his wisdom, then you need to buy this book.  You can find it online at many sources as well as in major real world book stores.

Goodbye, John.  You will be missed.

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