10secEVO

So I think I've come down with something recently. It's the only reason I can come up at why I'm thinking about doing what I'm about to do.
I'm currently driving an 04 Evo with about as much money and time put into as my marriage. BUT, I've got that itch recently to get into something new and different. My criteria was fast, turbo, and sexy and unfortunately for me, there just isn't anything on the market right now that fits all 3 criteria for a reasonable price. This car y'all call a "Mustang" has recently caught my eye though with this new engine and I've seen them in action on the track and are definitely respectable. I have a few questions that need to be answered.

I do a lot of both road racing and drag and my suspension has probably more money in it than anything else on my car. With this live rear end, how does this thing fare on both tracks and are there any options for after market?

I'm looking at both the GT Premium and Boss 302. What kind of numbers can these motors hold on stock internals/head? I plan on throwing on the same Precision 6267 that is on my car and need to know just how much work is going to be needed to safely run this turbo. What's the flow rate on the stock injectors/fuel pump?

Everyone knows there are plenty of aftermarket products for mustangs, but how many tuners are out there? I'm not talking about those little reflash programmer things (I've never trusted them and never will). My Evo is self tuned and I know it's ECU inside and out but obviously know nothing about Mustangs. I need to make sure a PERSON is tuning my car and not some generic mass produced electronic device.

Again I apologize for my ignorance and am actually kind of excited about looking more into this. I have a lot of respect for these new mustangs as I have seen what these things can do personally. I look forward to your responses and if any of you are ever on Evolutionm for whatever reason, drop me a line.

NickSezz

Welcome! Let me see if I can shine some light on a few of your concerns. In order:

The newest S197 chassis have been stiffened up somewhere near 15% compared to the first S197 chassis (05-09). This greatly improved the handling characteristics of an already good performing platform. I am still amazed on how well the car handles in stock configuration with a live axle. I would not let that be a concern for you when road racing. I would be more concerned on improving your own skill when it comes to driving a rear wheel drive car with a solid axle. It will be a whole different technique than what you are used to with an AWD car like the Evo. That said, there are plenty of aftermarket companies and part offerings to completely customize your suspension for whatever you want it to do. That can only be limited by your wallet and imagination really. You have the option to select parts from all different companies and mix match to get the result you want, or you can go with a company like Roush's complete suspension packages.

If you can swing the cash for the Boss, that is designed from the factory to be a road race car. It has a stronger built and higher revving engine right out of the box compared to the GT. Suspension is also tuned for racing, but will not be as good as something you can build yourself with aftermarket parts. The Boss can probably handle more than what you can throw at it with that turbo. I have seen plain GT's in the 600whp range that are still holding their own though, but that's going to be pushing limits as everyone's experience is different...

After learning how the maps kind of float around the BMW/other communities and tuning data is shared, I wish it was more like that here...The guys that know that stuff are the ones selling their canned tunes to the rest of us. If you wanted to tune yourself you would have to purchase something like the SCT Pro Racer software anyway as the hand held we use is limited. Even then, SCT does not allow you to see all of the parameters that exist due to different certification levels of the software and some that Ford probably doesn't want us to mess with. It is more commercialized here with software that is owned and developed for this purpose. Tuning is not based as much around cracking/hacking like you may be used too. You can have your car dyno tuned by one of the more popular tuners depending on your location.

Hope I helped at lease a little...I am not pro...yet. My 5.0 just dynoed 430/412 with just intake and a tune with axle back mufflers from a GT500. Think of the possibility! There are many FI kits out there so you do not have to go crazy making that single turbo work. There are a few twin turbo kits in the works and a hand full of twin screws and centri blowers that will give you more power than you'll really need!

10secEVO

So the factory ECU is negated to only quick reflash programmers? How do the tuners fine tune this vehicle on a dyno with just a reflash? On our Evo's, we have a few software programs that are made for data logging and then tuning timing/fuel from what we see on the data log pull. Is there no way to access this in the stock ECU?

NickSezz

Yes, you can log any parameter you want by plugging the SCT tuner into the OBDII port, then connecting the SCT tuner to a laptop with SCT software. The canned tunes are dyno developed. Check out americanmucle.com. They have a good selection of parts and will give you an idea of the type of parts/equipment we work with in regard to the Mustang aftermarket.

CrzyHrs

I love American Muscle. The only place I buy parts for my Mustang. I had an 08 Mustang with the 4.6 in it and traded it in on a 2012 5.0 and the difference in power and stability was night and day. I recently just took out a cow in the 5.0 though and it's in the shop, was a sad night check out the Cow vs. Mustang thread. I too have a JLT CAI and a tune from Bama performance and its unbelievable at the power the thing puts out. I've got an SLP axle back and a set of Kook's long tube headers that will be put on once it gets outta the shop (and a kooks x-pipe) I've yet to dyno it but I will have it retuned by a guy in Birmingham Alabama who is suppose to really know his stuff with mustangs and tunes. He took 4 hours to tune one of my buddies cars just because he looks at every little thing. He even cleaned out his mass flow sensor. Your options are limitless when it comes to these things man. I wouldn't own anything else.

Mishri

I don't know of any big name tuners in Louisiana. So you can take an SCT certification/class and they'll teach you how to tune/datalog your mustang and give you the software to do it.

alternatively you can get an e-mail canned tune from a reputable shop (I recommend BAMA as they guarantee theirs), data log your car after you tune it, and send it to your tuner for adjustments.

Since you plan on going F/I with your own turbo I'm not sure if I'd trust the canned tunes either though.

Stock injectors are good up to 550-600whp(you can run 7psi on a s/c w/o upgrading the fuel system). Some people are holding 700whp and running 9s in the 1/4 mile, only fuel system upgrade is new injectors,. Others have blown up their engine with 600whp and running 10s. Depends on system, so far people haven't had the best luck with turbos on these engines. The fastest cars are running the TVS supercharger followed by procharger.

Like someone else said, the BOSS 302 is a good out of the box track car, especially the Laguna Seca model, http://www.fastestlaps.com/tracks/laguna_seca.html it's right up there with $70,000+ sports cars. If you are interested in modding your way into an awesome track car with even better performance than the Boss LS model you'll save money by getting a base GT and upgrading it, with massive weight reduction you can get these cars down to 3100lbs.