We know, a Mustang sharing...
We know, a Mustang sharing page space with anything else-especially Brand-X or (gasp) imports-is a travesty. However, as you'll see when you read this report on the 2010 Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge, Carlos Cortez's '07 Shelby GT500 did an outstanding job as our representative, leading the pack and holding its own in several categories that seemed like a lock for the Euro-Asian entries of our sister mags.
Last year we fielded a 14-year-old daily driver Mustang Cobra in the inaugural Castrol Syntec Challenge. It was a game move, putting up a lightly modified '94 Cobra against a bunch of mega-dollar cars representing other magazines, and we did well to finish fourth. However, like the editors of the other five magazines involved (Super Street, Import Tuner, Eurotuner, Honda Tuning and Modified Magazine), Big Steve wanted to step up our game this year. And so Carlos Cortez's '07 Mustang Shelby GT500 convertible got the nod.
Carlos' car's main attraction is nuclear thrust. The GT500s are no slouch off the showroom floor, of course. With Carlos' ride wearing the first Vortech VTS supercharger upgrade, it packs a Herculean hit that's guaranteed to make almost any competitor run and hide from contests of brute force.
Of course, the Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge is far more than a drag race. The contest includes a dyno evaluation, emissions test, 180-mile endurance drive, 0-to-60 acceleration, 80-to-0 braking, power-to-weight calculations, and a fastest-lap shootout on the road course. Therefore our GT500 was further prepped to enhance its all-around game (see "Maxed Out" on page 64 in our Oct. '10 issue and "Topped Off" elsewhere in this issue).
With the dyno and emissions...
With the dyno and emissions tests completed, the Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge entourage gets ready to hit the road, with 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords' '07 Shelby GT500 leading the way!
Because the Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge is far more than a drag race, testing the participants is a three-day affair, opening with a dyno test at K&N Performance in Riverside, California. A best-of-three power pulls are made on K&N's Superflow chassis dyno, followed immediately by an emissions test.
Once everyone has their chance on the dyno's rollers, the Top Car entourage hits the road and rumbles through street and highway traffic, on the three-hour grind up to Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California's sweltering central valley. At Buttonwillow, Day 2 is dedicated to testing in the standing quarter-mile, 0-60 acceleration, and 80-0 braking. Day 3 is spent lapping Buttonwillow's "big track" in search of the single-fastest lap.
Brief assemblies like this...
Brief assemblies like this are common at the Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge. Elliott Moran (center, with the L.A. Dodgers cap and folder of papers) coordinates this deal each year, and makes it a point to keep all competitors abreast of the event's schedule, rules, and so on, by having impromptu meetings such as this.
Points are awarded mainly, but not completely, as a percentage of the best competitor's performance, which makes it impossible for competitors to keep tabs on how everyone is doing. Furthermore, while some results are plainly evident to anyone watching, others, such as the officially clocked lap times, are known only to the officials, and they keep those a secret for a couple of months so the news doesn't leak out early and spoil the fun.
We certainly had the power this year, and as long as the brakes stayed close to their operating temperature, our Shelby GT500 had fabulous braking, along with good emissions and unimpeachable street-car credentials. If we have to call something an Achilles' heel for our combination, it's definitely the car's excessive weight and limp chassis.
I'll finish by saying I love road racing, but that particular discipline of motorsports asks a lot of a street car. It's impossible to brake or corner anywhere as hard and as repeatedly on the street as is the norm on the track. The qualities that make a great track car also contribute a lot to having a punishing street car. But the perceived catch-22 is that great street cars usually tend to fall apart on the track. Our Top Car challenger dispelled that theory.
In the final analysis, I'm jealous of Carlos' ability to take his GT500 (and its sledgehammer performance) for a long, spirited cruise through the canyons of SoCal, tunes playing, fresh air blowing, and massive power burst always at the ready. His ride is a fabulous street car with wonderful driveability. And by bettering its competition in outright power, and finishing a close second in the acceleration and braking tests (and being just a touch below emissions standards with long-tube headers), this GT500 definitely is a winner with us in its intended street environment.
As you can imagine, Castrol's...
As you can imagine, Castrol's Syntec is the preferred engine lubricant for Top Car Challenge entries. Prior to the start of the competition, Carlos tops off our '07 Shelby GT500's super-blown 5.4 with a few insurance drops of 5W-50.
Top Car Challenge festivities...
Top Car Challenge festivities get started at K&N Performance in Riverside, California. We drew the first run on the dyno, and immediately created a bit of a buzz among the competitors to follow.
There are two bitchin' four-wheel-drive...
There are two bitchin' four-wheel-drive chassis dynamometers at K&N Performance-a Dynojet and this Superflow unit, which was used for testing all six of the Top Car Challenge participants. While the Superflow's measurements seemed to be a bit lower than the numbers each competitor anticipated (yes, we did hear someone say, "that can't be right" about the results of their car's dyno session), we were happy with the GT500's performance, as it put 5.0&SF solidly in the lead of the competition.
Your tech editor's call to...
Your tech editor's call to make two back-to-back dyno runs and then cool the supercharger, throttle body, and air-inlet tube (for 10 minutes) using ice ultimately proved to be worth 15 additional horsepower at the feet.
The increase brought a look...
The increase brought a look of surprise and disappointment to everyone else, as the increase made it clear there would be no catching the Mustang on the dyno.
Each Top Car entry must complete...
Each Top Car entry must complete an impromptu emissions (Smog) test, shortly after their power run on the dyno. Cars are run for 90 seconds at 2,500 rpm, and "sniffer" readings are recorded. The emissions results are factored into the participants' overall scores.