2020 Shelby GT500 Gains 56 HP, Thanks to Florida-based Tuner
There’s plenty of power left to coax out of a stock GT500 but it takes a little more finesse than usual to unlock it.
The new GT500 has barely been in the hands of enthusiasts long enough for the paint to dry, but that hasn’t stopped a host of owners from achieving impressive results at the dyno and the drag strip. But while most are swapping pulleys and playing around with the exhaust systems on these cars, a simple tune is enough to unlock an impressive amount of power. Case in point – this new video from Mustang whisperers Palm Beach Dyno, who managed to coax an extra 56 wheel horsepower out of their customer development car recently.
It’s an impressive result indeed, but something we’ve come to expect from PBD. After all, they’ve become arguably the most popular S550 Mustang tuner on earth in recent years. So they wasted no time working on this particular GT500, which belongs to Indiana resident Lee Dennis. In fact, they did some remote tuning on the car the day he brought it home from the dealership. But now, they managed to get his car strapped in on their dyno in South Florida, where they can really start to unlock its true potential.
The session begins, as they always do, with a few baseline pulls. “We went ahead and did four back-to-back stock pulls,” said PBD owner Ken Bjonnes. “First pull was 634 hp and 559 lb-ft of torque. That sounds a little low, but I got a little gun shy and lifted at 6,900 rpm. On the next pull, I revved it a little higher and got 684.” The third pull resulted in a slightly lower but more accurate 664 hp, and the fourth got a little messed up, so they threw it out. And now, it was time to have a little fun with the GT500.
PBD starts out with a 93 octane tune with a higher 8,000 rpm limit. And that was good enough to achieve 720 hp and 579 lb-ft of torque at the wheels. Even at 7,500 rpm, the GT500 made an impressive 703 hp. There’s undoubtedly more power to find here, but Bjonnes points out that the car has one major limiting factor. “It’s a bit challenging on many fronts,” he says. “And emissions is one of them. The catalytic converters are the most fragile thing in this system. When the catalytic converter protection kicks in, the car enriches itself to use fuel to cool the cats off.”
Of course, the easy fix for that problem is to remove the cats, if you’re (ahem) legally able to. But still, these are undoubtedly impressive numbers for nothing more than a tune. And you can bet that PBD isn’t finished coaxing more power out of the new GT500 just yet!
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