Testing the car included an...
Testing the car included an immediate trip to one of our local dragstrips. With fall temperatures in the 70-degree range, the car clicked off a respectable 13.726-second e.t. at a stout 99.87 mph. No tune, no tricks-bone stock!
As stated, we've turned over this entire project to the capable hands of Paul Faessler, owner of Paul's Automotive Engineering, a Mustang super center in Cincinnati. Paul has been maximizing Mustangs for more than 20 years, and the members of his staff of Ford technicians were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Kenny's car so they could get to work on it. Having already done several blower installations, engine builds, race suspension installs, as well as most of the basic bolt-ons for the S197 Mustang, Paul had a leg up on most tuning shops.
We began our evaluation of the car with a trip to the in-house chassis dyno. Shop Manager Tom Honsaker and Head Technician Big Mike Wilson strapped down the Sonic Blue beauty on the rollers and we snapped the pictures. The automatic GT spit out 242.9 hp and 257.6 lb-ft at the rear wheels, which, given a 22 percent drivetrain loss, comes out to around 297 hp at the crank. We also encountered a 120-mph speed limiter built into the stock Ford programming due to-we are told-the car coming through with the HR speed rated tires.
While we were at the dragstrip,...
While we were at the dragstrip, we decided to try a few performance parts that have proven to be reliable upgrades to the new Mustang. We installed one of the new C&L Racer cold-air intakes and uploaded the companion tune with a DiabloSport Predator. Big Mike Wilson, head technician at Paul's Automotive Engineering, worked with Lee Bender to determine a tune-up for the car prior to us hitting the strip. On the dyno, the car increased to 266 hp and 267 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels in testing. At the strip, our numbers went to a 13.543-second e.t. at 100.79 mph.
One hot topic (that got a few Ford people fired if the stories are true) is the weight of these new Mustangs. Ours weighed in at 3,540 pounds, with 1,900 pounds on the front tires and 1,640 pounds on the rear. That's about 100 pounds heavier than a comparably equipped stick car, 200 pounds heavier than an '04 GT, and probably 600 pounds heavier than an '88 5.0 LX notchback. We're interested in seeing how that weight affects the car's performance and the longevity of the automatic transmission.
While at Paul's Automotive Engineering, Big Mike worked with C&L's Lee Bender to develop a new program on the Predator tuner for Lee's new "Race" cold-air intake for the '05 Mustang. The C&L cold-air system performed well in our 11-way comparison ("Cold Score," Dec. '05, p. 84), and this new system looks to further improve the C&L line. On the PAE chassis dyno, the C&L race kit was good for a 23hp and 10-lb-ft pop, and Mike was able to bypass the speed limiter as well as monitor inlet temperature with the Predator.
Before we headed to the dragstrip, we wanted to address another concern with our baseline testing: traction. Because of the low gearing on this car (and testing it on the streets), we knew it would give us some serious grunt off the line. We gave Jonathan Ozeretny of Nitto Tire a call to see what he had available for the new Mustangs. He quickly sent a pair of P245/45R17 NT555R drag radials. We mounted them on a set of take-off rims supplied to us by Sutton High Performance-a great source for all sorts of special '05 Mustang gear. Now, you may think these tires are on the small side, but we were looking for a slightly shorter tire to pick up some gear (shorter tire equals increase in numerical rear gearing). We also didn't plan to do much testing in near-stock trim, so plans for a full-on drag slick are in this car's future.
The DiabloSport Predator is...
The DiabloSport Predator is a cool little deal. It allows you to upload custom programs into your car's computer (such as the C&L file that matches the company's Racer CAI) to compensate for increased performance. You can also create custom tunes by modifying the fuel tables. We used it to monitor engine temperature at the track to ensure we were running the car between 170 and 190 degrees. In case you haven't heard-the '05 likes it cold.
The Nitto drag radials are well known for dramatically improving traction while also having a respectable wear rating. In other words, you can drive these on the street without going through a set of tires every 1,000 miles, as with some other drag radials. If you're planning to put a set of Nitto drag radials on your Mustang and leave them there, we suggest you try Nitto's 275/40-17s-that way, you'll have the best of both worlds.
Ford Mustangs have always been built to be driven-and driven hard. So, off to the local dragstrip we went with a 1,300-mile '05 Mustang. We had read stories of mid-13s in showroom stock condition, and we didn't expect anything less. It didn't surprise us when the first pass on the car was a 13.815 at 99.21 mph (2.107-second short time), but what did surprise us was how easy it was to do that. Remember, this is with the car in completely stock trim-we hadn't tuned it, added the cold-air, or put sticky tires on it yet. Pull through the burnout box, heat the tires enough to clean them off, power-brake the car against the tight 1,800-rpm stock converter, drop the brake and mash the gas on green, leave the thing in Drive, and pick up your 13-second timeslip. It was too easy! We swapped drivers; we ran it hot; we ran it cool; we tried big burnouts and no burnouts; and the worst the car ran was a 14.093 e.t. at 96.76 mph. The best we got was a rewarding 13.726-second e.t. at 99.87 mph-completely stock and still tight. With a car that had some more miles on it, we believe the 13.30-13.40s that some people are reporting might truly be possible.