By Pat Griffith
Should the Shelby Mustang drivers in F Stock start looking for new rides? Although he has committed to driving his new 5.0-liter 2011 Mustang GT for the rest of the year, Sam Strano thinks the power (advantage: new car) and handling (advantage: old car) differences between the two cars will still make for interesting competition.
Despite the electrical gremlins that have hampered the car early on, Sam thinks those problems are behind them, and he Mike Snyder will compete in the car at the Solo Nationals in Lincoln, Neb.
“We plan on only bringing one car with us to Lincoln,” Sam said. “I don’t want to leave the new car home. Even if it’s the same speed as the Shelbys, I’ll drive it.”
Sam picked up the car from Apple Ford the weekend of the D.C. Pro Solo, and two weeks later, it was in competition trim at the SCCA National Tour in Peru, Ind., with Konis and Magnaflow mufflers. During the Friday test day, Sam and Mike did some tweaking, including adding an adjustable front sway bar, and Mike also brought out his Shelby Mustang for comparison testing. They decided to go with the new Mustang for competition, but a mysterious electrical issue crept up where the car would cut down on power. They went back to Mike’s Shelby for the second day of competition.
At the Toledo Pro Solo, Sam drove his new Mustang while Mike drove his Shelby. While Sam ended up losing to Jason Burns in his Mustang Shelby (by less than two tenths of a second), he felt encouraged because a Ford engineer was on hand data logging the car and likely found the source of the power loss – an intake cam sensor issue that wasn’t even triggering a check-engine light.
“I got in contact with a Ford engineer last year who lurks on some message forums and saw me post about the Shelby and my old blue Mustang GT,” Sam said. “When all this started in Peru, he sent me an e-mail asking if I needed some help. He contacted another engineer who did a lot of work on the development of the car, and he came out to Toledo to datalog the car under race conditions.”
The fault lasted just 32 milliseconds, but they finally had the problem nailed down.
“The Ford guys were concerned, and they wanted it fixed,” Sam said. As the engineer said to him, “You can sell more cars than I ever will.” Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
The biggest difference between the two cars lies underneath the hood where the new 5.0L has the upper hand over the 4.6L Shelby with 93 more horsepower and 110 more foot-lbs of torque. However, the car isn’t as stiffly sprung as the Shelby, but Sam did note the rear has bigger sway bar and stiffer springs than the previous generation Mustang GT.
Mike’s initial driving impression: “The 5.0 has more grunt, but the car is a little softer. You have to lead it a little more into the turns, but it will point and shoot off its nose better. It’s a little bit harder to drive, but that doesn’t mean it’s slower. It’s a little bit less predictable – that’s why you have to lead it more. But it’s very fast when you hit the right pedal.”
“A lot of people won’t like it,” Sam added. “It’s not a pseudo-ESP car — it moves around a lot.”
At Toledo, the new Mustang weighed 3,519 with about 1/3 of a tank of gas. On the scales at the Peru Tour, Mike’s Shelby weighed 3,417.
For the exhaust, Sam went with a Magnaflow system that saves about 16 pounds over the stock exhaust. It’s possible to save even more weight but he wanted the Magnaflow mufflers for the sake of having a relatively quiet sound while on the road — he still wants to drive his new Mustang on the street (Sam’s ESP Camaro still had air conditioning and a stereo, so he doesn’t mind sacrificing creature comforts for a few pounds of weight). Also with sound restrictions being implemented at various sites, including Lincoln Airpark, he wanted a quieter exhaust to ensure the noise remained below the limit.
The Konis are off-the-shelf adjustables, but Sam has a set of monotube AST dampers to go on the car.
For wheels, Sam got a custom set of Forgelines that along with the Hoosiers saves about 10 pounds per corner. Since the car has 19-inch wheels, they don’t have any choice for rain tires except the Pirellis that came on the car, but Sam and Mike said the stock tires are really good in the wet anyway.
The rear differential hasn’t been touched — it can be shimmed tighter (and legally on the Mustangs, even the previous generation, in Stock), and it’s something that Mike and Sam are going to address before Nationals.
As for stock options, Sam chose the Brembo brake package with the 19X9-inch wheels – non-Brembo cars have options for 19X8.5” and 18X8 wheels. He also got a car with 3.31 gears – other possibilities include 3.55s and 3.73s, but Sam figures with the 6,800 RPM limit (“and it starts to lose steam up high”), the lower gears are better for Stock. Second gear should be good for about 70mph.
So far, the comparison between the new 5.0L Mustang and the 4.6L Shelby reminds me of when the later third generation F-Bodies were in the class with the fourth generation F-Bodies. On paper, the LT1 cars and then the LS1 cars looked like they were easily the F-Body to have, but people like Paul and Lynne Kozlak kept showing that their dinosaur IROC Camaro wasn’t extinct yet. The older car didn’t have the horsepower, but it had plenty of low-end torque, not to mention handling that made it easier to drive fast out of the box.
“I think the car can get it done, but it won’t crush everybody,” Sam said.
