Back to the track and in the 11's.

[TurboShelbyGT]

I finally got my Shelby GT in the 11's tonight and am pretty happy about it.

 

I bought the car new in 2008. I was bored with the power as a 13 second car isn't very fast to me. I put a Whipple HO 550 kit on it. The car went from a base whp on our AWD500 Mustang Dyno of about 237 whp up to about 390 whp. I also wasn't very impressed with the brakes on the car so I added the GT500 from brakes. In the process I wanted to drop some weight so we had some lightweight rotors built. This dropped a considerable amount of weight off the front and rear of the car and the braking was/is EXCELLENT.

 

I ran the car like that last year and in some really nice air managed a 12.003 at 120.66 mph. I really wanted to run 11's but it wasn't to be.

 

Over the winter I built a set of bolt on off road pipes to eliminate the cats on the car. These bolt to the stock manifolds and go to the stock X-pipe our cars come with. The sound was excellent! While we were in there we pulled the factory exhaust manifolds off, ported them and had them ceramic coated. These off road pipes and port work picked the car up nearly 30 more whp.

 

I've run the car twice since then, once at a really poorly prepped track in Indy, this was at the Winged Warrior event. This event is a drag race, autocross, slalom and car show combined, all individually scored. I was in Class A with the car and won the class.

 

Last week I decided to give it another shot. The very first pass in the car, I don't know what I was thinking, but when I attempted to heat the tires up I stalled the car. I restarted it and got after it hard. Engine was rev'ing, lots of smoke and then I smelled clutch. I then realized it was the clutch that was smoking and not the tires. For some dumb absent minded reason, I was in 2nd gear........I didn't make the pass, headed back to the pits and let the clutch cool down.

 

Let me get off topic for one second. I also became an SCT dealer and have the tuning software. I had set up the launch control in the car for the track last week. It was set at a very low, 3,000 rpm.

 

So after the car cooled off I went up for another pass. Thinking the 3,000 rpm rev limit at the line would be perfect I gave it a shot, WAY too much! It just smoked the tires, I didn't take my laptop so I had no way of dropping it back down. Wasted night.

 

Tonight I came home from work and my wife told me, "Let's take the Mustang to the track." PERFECT! I love my wife! We loaded up with our daughter, drove out there, pulled in the gate and made a pass right after getting there. First run was 11.91 at 118.xx mph, 1.80 sixty foot. I could feel the clutch wasn't happy though. I wanted to back up the 11 with another 11 second pass so I gave it one more shot. The next run the clutch was slipping for sure. 1.86 sixty foot and on the 1-2 shift I could feel and smell the clutch. The car ran 93.47 mph in the 1/8th and ran a 12.006 at 119.xx mph. Happy with that and knowing the clutch would continue to get worse we left and went for a drive.

 

That's it for this year. I don't know if I'll drag race it again, I wanted an 11 second pass from it and I've got it. I'm going to put a new clutch in it over the winters and some new good handling tires. I think this one is done. Just drive it and enjoy it now.

 

I've got a new 5 liter coming in the 18th I ordered about 5 weeks ago. That one is going to be a project. My goal with it is to run 8's, first we are going to build it naturally aspirated and then it's getting turbo charged, which is our specialty.

 

Enjoy your cars!

[speedyburd33]

nice story. Do you own a business that does mustang mods?

[TurboShelbyGT]

I own a business that specializes in Mitsubishi's currently. This Mustang project made me see some things I wanted that weren't available, so we produced them or had them made. Like the lightweight rotors and off road pipes.

 

The current Mitsubishi line up is slow in the new car sales area, so we are going to build some parts for the new 5 liter. The Mustang is the only other car that really interest me and I have to be passionate about what I am doing. The goal for the new 5 liter I have coming is a car I can autocross, road race, daily drive AND run 8.90's in. Should be a fun project.