To Greatly Increase starting-line...
To Greatly Increase starting-line grip and track performance, we grabbed a pair of Nitto NT555R Drag Radials in size P245/45R17 to fit on the stock rims. These are slightly shorter than the stock tires, but that's just fine at this power level. The reduction in roll-out actually gave us a bump in numerical gearing. As such, we used our Predator to recalculate for the tire size. Otherwise, a little wrench symbol will light up on the dashboard, indicating you're in limp mode. At first, we thought it was because we were doing our burnouts for too long, but we realized it was the tires.
The cool part about driving this car at the dragstrip is that the transmission really goes to work for you. The first three gears are pounded out so fast right to the factory redline of 6,000 rpm that you feel as though you're just getting sucked along for the ride. Bang, bang, bang-and High gear hits a little after mid-track with the Three-Valve screaming for all its worth. You'll really appreciate this car if you ever owned something like an '89 GT with the AOD transmission and the stock 2.73 gearing. You have the same torque in the new Mustang, but the factory has finally given you the hardware to make it work for you without having to rebuild a transmission and dump money into a rear-gear change.
It also becomes more apparent at the dragstrip just how tough these new Mustangs are. Whack the thing off the line, and it just goes. There are no interior pieces rubbing together, no body twist, and no shifter trim panel popping off the tunnel. The weight we see on the scales pays off in a solid chassis that should see a long and healthy life.
Once we established a solid baseline on the car, we were eager to start the modification process. As mentioned earlier, we began by installing a set of Nitto drag radials mounted on Sutton Performance take-off factory rims and the new C&L cold-air intake with companion Predator tuner featuring a custom, Paul's Automotive Engineering tune. The car responded with a stout 13.543-second e.t. at 100.79 mph. So, we picked up a couple of mph while dropping two tenths. Our short times (the time it takes the car to cover the first 60 feet of the dragstrip and a direct indicator of available traction) dropped from the low-2-second range into the high-1.90 range. That's not as dramatic a reduction as we thought we'd see, and it gives us good reason to start the serious modifications with a performance torque converter.
Our good friends at Sutton...
Our good friends at Sutton High Performance came through with a set of take-off rims from their project '05. Sutton has a ton of parts for the new Mustang, and they build one of the fastest Three-Valve '05 Mustangs in the country. So check out this company for your hard-bangin' '05 gear.
Still, a good cold-air system, a performance tune, and sticky tires are easy modifications you can do at the track to your own '05 Mustang that will result in a faster, more consistent car. Speaking of consistency, you can't help but realize what an outstanding bracket car the new Mustang is when equipped with the automatic transmission. With a good set of tires out back, you should be able to split your dial-in down to the thousandths of a second. And, with that low gearing, you can get a great launch, which should translate into confidence for good reaction times.
We have quite a lineup of stories about this car coming for you. We already have a performance torque converter installed, we're looking at creative ways to drop weight from one of these cars, CNC-ported Three-Valve heads and performance camshafts are sitting here, and we're going to put on some sort of power adder. By the time Kenny gets back his car, he might have to update his NHRA Competition driver's license!
Our ultimate goal is to dig into this car and see what happens, and-hopefully-we'll all learn a lot about the new Mustang in the process. If you have any questions or a specific direction you'd like to see us take, please send an e-mail. We'll do our best to show you the right way to build one of these amazing new Mustangs.