Mustang Performance

Hello and welcome to the Ventura Motor Works page about our 2008 Mustang GT500. We'll start off with a little history; we purchased this car new, in 2008. After some negotiating and a little research it was decided that a GT500 was a better option than trying to make a regular GT faster. At the time every dealer wanted MSRP plus a little extra :-/ So we had to search but we found a good deal locally in Southern California and so it began.

A stock GT500 is rated at 500hp, which is great but not really enough. At least not enough for car nuts like us, so we started the upgrades and modifications, but where to start? What is the best bang for buck? Should we send it to Shelby and spend $28k to make it faster, should we call Saleen? We had another idea in mind and decided that we knew exactly what we wanted. We just needed to do some research and figure out how to get there.

Taking a "Problem - Solution" approach we identified our biggest complaint about the car, which was wheel hop. If you aren't familiar with  what that is, basically what happens is, when the car takes off quickly from a stand still, the rear tires won't grip enough to take off and won't completely lose control and spin, which causes the rear end of the car to hop up and down. A jarring motion that lost power and speed and felt like it would ultimately hurt the car over time.

After a little research, we discovered that the suspension was to blame, so we started by changing the rear suspension and replacing it with Ford Racing Springs designed for this car. Average cost around $230 (springs only, not installed). This change slightly lowered the rear end approximately one inch. Not a major change overall but a definate change in performance. After a month we decided to change the front suspension as well with the appropiate matching springs, which lowered the front approximately eight tenths of an inch. These changes effectively eliminated wheel hop.

Now that the rear end no longer shook at take off, it was time to  put some serious tires on this car. The stock tires are Goodyear F1 255/45R18 Front and 285/40R18 Rear. Not a bad tire but not a great tire either. We noticed a significant amount of slipping and spinning from the rear tires. Again after a little research we chose a Nitto 555 Drag Radial DOT Approved Street Tire: Front 255/45R18 Rear 305/45R18 (it is important to note that we had made a gear change as well, which we'll discuss later but makes a difference when choosing the tire height. We switched from a 40 height to a 45 height in the rear). This was a major change in our minds, the wider and much stickier tire made a huge difference in performance. It is important to note that these tires do not last as long as other tires depending on use but if that is your concern then you have the wrong car. We have a nice prius we'd like to sell you that also get amazing gas mileage.

Now the stock gears for this car are 3:31's. Not a bad ratio but the car has way too much top end. No one driving on the street needs to go 160mph but they do need to get to 120mph very quickly, so we changed the gears to a 4:11 ratio. The reason we went to a 4:11 was to get a much more responsive take off and because of the taller tires. If you go with a less aggressive ratio like a 3:71 you may choose to go with the stock height tire but still go with the wider tire such as a 305/40R18. When the gears are changed it is very important to reset your speedometer. The easiest way is to buy a programmer which has many other benefits. Otherwise you can call some local mechanic shops and see if they can do it for you.

Now that the car has some "GO" it needs some "Get Up", so we started looking into adding horsepower and taking weight off the car. Not too much weight mind you, we still drive this thing as a daily driver; its not a drag car. The first thing we decided was to get a power programmer. Why? Simple; you can't really change anything else on the car without a programmer or else the car doesn't know that the change was made. This means that when you change the tire size or the gears, your speedometer may not read properly. A good programmer is easy to use and works effectively. We chose the Predator Progammer (about $350 for a new one). With this programmer you can adjust the gears you run, the fuel you run and a lot more. It is important to note that this should be one of your first purchases, when you change tire height, gear ratio or anything that changes the performance of your car. This will make sure that your car knows, otherwise you can have some unwanted side effects from the change. For example new gears will dramatically change your speedometer reading and you won't know exactly how fast you're going.

Once the programmer was in, we started to make some other performance changes. The first change we made was adding a K&N Cold Air Intake System. This system adds 53hp and is relatively easy to install. Dollar per horse power this is a great bet. It allows the car to ingest much more air and draws in cooler air as well; again helping performance. 

We were very pleased with the added hp from the K&N Filter and Intake; now the car needed better exhaust. For two reasons: (1) it needed better flow through, (2) we wanted better sound and that is what we got. We custom made our own Free Flow Exhaust System and it made a noticable difference but also a noticable problem. At high rpm the car would lose power momentarily.

What to do? The car had everything: air in, air out and it knew that changes had been made because of the Predator Programmer, so what exactly was the problem? It took awhile and a few phone calls but when we tracked down the right guy, he said, change your spark plugs. What? Spark Plugs? Yes, apparently when you add a K&N Intake and a more free flow exhaust with the added horse power the stock spark plugs can't handle it and they lose spark because too much air is making it into the cylinder. Who would have thought? It was recommended that we use Iridium Spark plugs since they can handle the extra power and air flow. We were excited since this would be a relatively inexpensive fix.

At this point we were very happy, well, pretty happy. The car was fast, really fast for a street car. So we thought, how do we make it scary fast? Well, the best option was a new pulley for the super charger. Again, back to the computer to do some research. Remember, we don't want to crack open the engine, we don't want to make major changes, just minor changes with a lot of power. We found out that if you change the pulley too small then you have to change the belt and idler pully; the stock pully is 3". We put on a 2.65" pulley. The smallest you can go without making the other changes. Installing this pulley involves a little more than just a bolt on, however it isn't that bad. This changed our boost rating from approximately 9lbs of boost to approximately 12lbs of boost. A huge change. We also  found that the boost is on sooner and spins the charger faster.

Although the car will run on straight pump gas we prefer to mix pump gas with 104 unleaded Sunoco fuel. We mix the fuel to an approximate 96 octane rating. If you choose to do this it is important to let the computer know that you are running a different octane to get the maximum power out of this change.

So far these are the only changes we've made, however, we already have our sites on the next two upgrades. The next step we'll take is a one piece ultra light aluminum drive shaft. This drive shaft weighs half of what the original two piece weighs and can handle the extra horse power. This weight reduction matched with a properly balanced drive shaft adds a significant amount of horse power. Made from T6061 aluminum this drive shaft is the next reasonable step for this car.

Once the drive shaft is replaced we plan on changing the shifter. The transmission is great and can handle the horse power, however we find the shifter to be a touch sloppy. Although we know which drive shaft is going in the car we haven't decided on which shifter to install. We will definately update this page when we decide and once installed we'll let you know our thoughts.