Originally Posted by
Riptide
Not to shabby! Some gears and a better 60' time would have you into the 12s. There's a guy on the rustang forums who posted high 12s with just an intake and tune. Everything else stock including tires.
Manuals are harder to drive in drag race.
I've seen a few of those run like that locally. But they typically are driven by some kid probably 100 pounds lighter than my lard-butt and probaly have complete custom dyno tunes rather than a more off-the-shelf mail order tune. Custom tunes can really take the car to the limit whereas mail order tunes usually play it a little more safe and leave a little more power on the table.
Anyway, I've since added 4.10 gears to the Mustang but I have not been able to get any better times. Turns out that I now need to shift into 4th gear in order to avoid the rev limiter (6700) just before going across the finish line whereas before (with stock 3.55s) I could hold 3rd gear and avoid that last time-and-momentum-consuming up-shift. Could be I just need more practice with that gearing at the launch. I've only been to the track with the 4.10s a few times vs. more than a 20 on the 3.55s.
I can not wait until I can test the Challenger at the track.
For the record, an 05-09 Mustang could beat an 04 GTO (5.7L with 350 HP stock)(05 -06 GTO with 6.0L is more of a problem with 400 HP stock). I once raced one (04 model) when we both had just CAIs and tunes as our only mods and I could beat him to the line without much trouble. It comes down to more than just HP. There is the driver thing, ability to plant traction and then the actual engine tune, throttle mapping, stock gearing and rpm sweet-spot/rev-limiter limitations.
Leading to my conjecture that all of these cars are too close and could end up being a driver's race.