'14 GT Automatic - drag racing results from a few simple mods

[skaarlaj]

Good job man, a factory car on stock tires going 12's is pretty damn cool imo!

 

[Five Oh Brian]

Good job man, a factory car on stock tires going 12's is pretty damn cool imo!

Thanks! I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to give my friend the 12 second timeslips he was hoping for in his '17 due to the traction limitation of the crappy factory Pirelli tires. The factory line lock works decently and I cooked the tires. They hooked way better than I expected.

I'm about ready to order some long tube headers and updated tune for my '14 GT. Need more power!

 

[808muscle]

Went to Pacific Raceways last night. DA at 1400-1500' above sea level. Only made 3 passes in my car, but very consistent: 11.63, 11.64, and 11.65. Recalculated for the DA puts the car squarely in the 11.40's in better weather so I'm anxiously awaiting that cool fall air!

On a side note, I made 3 passes in a friend's brand new 2017 Mustang GT/CS automatic. I've never driven a 2015+ Mustang except in a parking lot - LOL - so I was happy to see how it would go for me. Factory stock on factory all season tires. My friend has never drag raced and asked me to get him a 12 second timeslip. I dropped the rear tires to 20 psi. Factory line lock works well, and I did a nice smoky burnout. Staged and ran a 12.87 @ 109 mph. Backed it up with a 12.84 pass. 3rd run I had some issues with the line lock timing and didn't get enough heat in the tires. Ran a 12.95. I forgot how crappy the stock torque converter is in a 6R80. 60' times ranged from 1.98 to 2.02. My friend isn't ready to commit to a Circle-D converter yet, but he sees what it does for my '14 GT.

Our two 5.0's certainly led the way last night. The other late model Mustangs at the track were stuck in the 13's and 14's. Various mods (CAI's, exhaust, etc.) and none of them could get into the 12's last night! Makes me feel great about getting my buddy's '17 solidly into the 12's each pass and my consistent 11.60's!

Thats pretty cool Brian. Your car has always beeen consistant. I took my stock 2016 auto out for TNT in Feb. Best I got was 12.97 couldnt get much traction. Couldnt load up the convertor at all so I was leaving off idle. I also at the time didnt realize to turn TC fully off you had to hold the toggle for 7 seconds. LOL

On another note we had our monthly event last weekend and raced my 06 car and I took first place!! Two wins and Two runner ups this year.......having a awesome year. Racing is so much fun.

 

[Five Oh Brian]

Thats pretty cool Brian. Your car has always beeen consistant. I took my stock 2016 auto out for TNT in Feb. Best I got was 12.97 couldnt get much traction. Couldnt load up the convertor at all so I was leaving off idle. I also at the time didnt realize to turn TC fully off you had to hold the toggle for 7 seconds. LOL

On another note we had our monthly event last weekend and raced my 06 car and I took first place!! Two wins and Two runner ups this year.......having a awesome year. Racing is so much fun.

Your '06 is such a great car for bracket racing and I know you have the driver mod that so many other people lack! It'll be interesting to see how your '16 progresses. You could put together a build & progress thread for the '16. First mod for your '16 (after traction) should be a big Circle-D stall converter!

 

[dre256]

Our two 5.0's certainly led the way last night. The other late model Mustangs at the track were stuck in the 13's and 14's. Various mods (CAI's, exhaust, etc.) and none of them could get into the 12's last night! Makes me feel great about getting my buddy's '17 solidly into the 12's each pass and my consistent 11.60's!

I was at the track Friday night, my buddy has a 2016 triple yellow auto, 3.55 gears (automatic), CAI, nitto 285-35 rear tires, and tune. He was running 12.48, I was running 12.55 next to him with mods in my signature, tires I running was my street Michelin pilot sport XLs. We where shocked we didn't see any other mustangs getting into the 12s! Was a 2013 or 2014 there running low 13s nothing in 12s. Was a 2017 camaro ZL1 only running 11.9s. Half second faster for double the price!

 

[Five Oh Brian]

I was at the track Friday night, my buddy has a 2016 triple yellow auto, 3.55 gears (automatic), CAI, nitto 285-35 rear tires, and tune. He was running 12.48, I was running 12.55 next to him with mods in my signature, tires I running was my street Michelin pilot sport XLs. We where shocked we didn't see any other mustangs getting into the 12s! Was a 2013 or 2014 there running low 13s nothing in 12s. Was a 2017 camaro ZL1 only running 11.9s. Half second faster for double the price!

Driver mod, FTW. I think a lot of people get that adrenaline rush and just mash the loud pedal and spin the tires, especially on street tires. So they take 12 second capable cars and turn them into 13 second cars (or worse!). Good thing that guys like you and I can show them what's possible!

 

[gmcvt]

This just shows how absolutely awesome these cars are. 11's without touching the motor. Very impressive sir and thank you for documenting and sharing that.

 

[Five Oh Brian]

This just shows how absolutely awesome these cars are. 11's without touching the motor. Very impressive sir and thank you for documenting and sharing that.

Thank you! We live in great times when there are so many 11 & 12 second cars available from the manufacturers, whether we're talking musclecars like our Camaros, Challengers, and Mustangs, or luxury cars like the Tesla Model S, AMG's, Cadillac V cars, BMW M cars, etc. These are certainly the "good old days" right now!

I've turned my attention to Long Tube Headers for a wintertime mod. The hope is to run 11.50's all racing season, even when it's 90 degrees outside. Of course, that means in cool fall weather they'll hound me for a six-point rollbar as it'll run below 11.50.

 

[skaarlaj]

Thank you! We live in great times when there are so many 11 & 12 second cars available from the manufacturers, whether we're talking musclecars like our Camaros, Challengers, and Mustangs, or luxury cars like the Tesla Model S, AMG's, Cadillac V cars, BMW M cars, etc. These are certainly the "good old days" right now!

I've turned my attention to Long Tube Headers for a wintertime mod. The hope is to run 11.50's all racing season, even when it's 90 degrees outside. Of course, that means in cool fall weather they'll hound me for a six-point rollbar as it'll run below 11.50.

Headers bought me 2-3 tenths in the eighth, but I ditched the cats at the same time, you'll be smiling, I'm sure!

 

[Five Oh Brian]

So, in the interest of full disclosure and keeping fellow drag racers from wasting money, allow me to fess up about a mod I did awhile ago that did not work as advertised. Thank you to FourDegrees11 for getting me to come forward with this info in a separate thread elsewhere here in the forums.....

I installed aftermarket coils in my '14 GT in early 2016 and still have them in the car. They have worked flawlessly and the car does idle smoother. I have back-to-back data from the dragstrip with & without them on two days that were identical weather with the same Density Altitude. I chose not to include them in this thread for the past year and a half for 2 simple reasons:

1) too many people get bent out of shape around here if you use anything other than the stock OEM coils & I didn't want to hear the negativity, and

2) the performance improvement was repeatable & consistent, but so small that I figured nobody would care one bit (.03 second and .15 mph in the 1/4 mile). That improvement equates to just a one (1) horsepower increase!

In retrospect, the aftermarket coils were not worth the money, in my opinion. Over $500 for a 65,000 volt set! There are many other mods that yield much more bang-for-the-buck in our cars. I'll run them until they fail, then reinstall the factory OEM coils.

Probably the best thing that came out of this was that I pulled all of my spark plugs and gapped them identically and found the gap that my car liked best. The gaps from the factory varied a bit, and I'm OCD about things being consistent and even!

 

[Five Oh Brian]

Headers bought me 2-3 tenths in the eighth, but I ditched the cats at the same time, you'll be smiling, I'm sure!

I ditched my cats long ago, so I hope I still see some sort of meaningful gains going with LT headers. I'd like to think that they'd be worth 2 tenths and 1-2 mph in the 1/4 mile. I guess it'll be next spring before I know for sure!

 

[fourdegrees11]

This thread is truly a great resource for everyone with a N/A coyote. Thank you.

 

[skaarlaj]

This thread is truly a great resource for everyone with a N/A coyote. Thank you.

It definitely helps people not buy unnecessary parts. I would've never guessed a stock airbox/filter would flow good enough for mid 11's, and who wouldn't want to go mid 11's and see a stock motor under the hood!

 

[stkjock]

IIRC stock air box in the 10s "wbt" has done it

 

[Five Oh Brian]

This thread is truly a great resource for everyone with a N/A coyote. Thank you.

Happy to do my part! And thank you again for pointing out that I had omitted the coil-on-plug data.

And, for anyone who's curious, the coils I went with are from GMS. I used them with good results on my Vortech-supercharged 2007 Mustang GT, so I was hoping I'd see some benefit on my Coyote.

 

[Five Oh Brian]

It definitely helps people not buy unnecessary parts. I would've never guessed a stock airbox/filter would flow good enough for mid 11's, and who wouldn't want to go mid 11's and see a stock motor under the hood!

It's amazing how often people look under my hood in the staging lanes and pits at our local drag strips after I click off an 11.50 or 11.60 and they look for a blower, turbo, or nitrous and find nothing but a stock engine. Then they notice the factory airbox and are dumbfounded. I've even had people ask to see inside the airbox, so I click it open and pull out the paper Motorcraft air filter! Priceless!

 

[tigerhonaker]

It's amazing how often people look under my hood in the staging lanes and pits at our local drag strips after I click off an 11.50 or 11.60 and they look for a blower, turbo, or nitrous and find nothing but a stock engine. Then they notice the factory airbox and are dumbfounded. I've even had people ask to see inside the airbox, so I click it open and pull out the paper Motorcraft air filter! Priceless!

Brian,

Priceless buddy.

Terry

 

[skaarlaj]

It's all in the stall and sticky tires!!

 

[Five Oh Brian]

Brian,

Priceless buddy.

Terry

Thanks, Terry! That's my soon-to-be son-in-law's 2008 Bullitt behind me in the staging lanes in the pic above. He has read plenty about your car and he is itchin' to supercharge his Bullitt. He's marrying my oldest daughter next year and has a wedding to get through before he can have a supercharger, though! My daughter is going to have her wedding gift registry at Macy's, while my son-in-law to be's registry will be online at americanmuscle dot com and LMR dot com!

It's all in the stall and sticky tires!!

Stall, stickies with big & littles, exhaust, and tuning FTW. Such a simple formula that doesn't cost too much. About $4K for this short list.

 

[Five Oh Brian]

Yesterday was my last race day of the season and I was bound & determined to run in the 11.40's - under the threshold for a rollbar. Previous best run was an 11.51 and 11.52. Only change since those passes was a change to Royal Purple engine oil. DA was around 300' above sea level. Race weight with me in the car was about 3650 lbs. Track is Bremerton Raceway in Port Orchard, WA (just west of Tacoma, WA).

First pass was my best pass - and new personal best! 11.457 @ 118.51. Next pass was an 11.497 @ 118.54. Also ran an 11.489 @ 118.34 and an 11.492 @ 119.96. Also had a run with a bad launch that netted my first 120+ mph trap speed ever in this car (11.62 @ 120.03).

Mission accomplished! Got into the 11.40's finally! Timeslips are below. I'm car #2061.