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What to do when your concept of performance extends beyond the quarter-mile.

So you got your hands on a Model S Plaid, the 1020-hp top of the Tesla food chain. You’ve grown accustomed to the sternum-crushing acceleration, and you’ve embarrassed all challengers in straight-line feats of speed. Now you want to dominate the racetrack.

Hot-rodding an EV isn’t quite the same game as hopping up a dinosaur-burner. We spoke with Ben Schaffer, CEO and co-founder of Unplugged Performance, a Tesla tuning shop in Hawthorne, California, to find out what it takes to make a Plaid into a track monster. Unplugged is the shop that built “Dark Helmet,” the modded Model S Plaid that holds the EV lap record at Laguna Seca.

This story originally appeared in Volume 8 of Road & Track.

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“One of the greatest strengths of the Plaid is its tremendous power. Traditionally, you want to add more, but in this case, you don’t really need it,” Schaffer says. “And I know that’s sacrilegious.”

The challenge is the car’s weight. The Plaid clocks in at nearly 4800 pounds, a ludicrous number for a track car. “No one’s ever had to stop a car of that weight from these speeds,” Schaffer says. “We’re talking about lap times comparable to nimble, lightweight cars—McLarens, Lamborghinis. It’s a new category in terms of the physics.”

This much weight pushed by this much power is a recipe for brake fade. Start with high-temp brake fluid and more aggressive brake pads. If you’re going for, say, a Laguna Seca lap record, step up to super lightweight carbon-ceramic brake discs (more than half an inch larger than stock but saving 25 pounds of unsprung weight) plus huge six-piston calipers.

If you want cornering grip, you need lots of front camber. Unplugged ran almost 4 degrees of negative camber on Dark Helmet for the Laguna lap record. Adjustable front upper control arms, plus adjustable rear camber arms and toe links, open up suspension settings that were never possible with the factory setup. Unplugged even offers a quick-change front control arm, so you can run aggressive settings at the track without destroying your tires on the drive home.

For tracking a Tesla, the biggest front tire you can fit on the car with a matching rear is always the best strategy,” Schaffer says. On Dark Helmet, that meant 310-section-width racing slicks. And that’s not even the ceiling—Unplugged puts 315-width tires on Model 3s for track duty. “You want as much front grip as you can throw at the car,” Schaffer says, “and we haven’t found that limit yet.” Lightweight billet machined wheels in a funky 19-by-10.9-inch size match those foot-wide tires and help shed rotating mass. Unplugged can even etch the customer’s name into these custom-made wheels or finish them in just about any color.

If all of the above still doesn’t have you going fast enough, it’s time for some race-car tricks. On Dark Helmet,Unplugged fabbed up a high-downforce rear wing and a matching front spoiler, and reshaped the factory front fenders with new air-extraction ducts and flared openings to cover those super-sticky tires. The Model S is a large, heavy sedan, so the aerodynamic devices need to be properly burly: Schaffer says you can stand on the front splitter without damaging it.