S197 Shelby GT500 Makes More Power on Lower Boost
E85 brings new life to the Mustang Lifestyle VMP tuned Shelby GT500, pushing over 800 horsepower to the wheels, despite less boost.
It’s crazy how much difference a change in fuel type can make affect a car’s performance. Tuning and dialing in power is an endless game of switching boost levels, fuel types, timing, and even tire pressure. Though, it seems the folks over at VMP Performance have it pretty well figured out.
In this video posted to the Mustang Lifestyle YouTube channel, host Andrew Sheridan brings his GT500 in for a new tune. Though they have a bigger pulley installed on the supercharger, they are setting out to make more power with the magic of E85.
“We have the GT500 on full E85. We are ready to see if the stock fuel system can handle it,” says Sheridan.
Though the car already makes a pretty insane power figure on pump gas with an octane booster, Sheridan set out to make the same power with E85 and less boost. E85 is capable of more power thanks to its oxygen content, thus, allowing more power to be made than traditional gasoline. However, when running E85, fuel economy drops drastically. Though, when you’re making over 800 horsepower, it’s not exactly a factor to worry about.
“We have a 2.8 pulley on the car; we have a 2.7 if things look good. Obviously E85 uses 25% more fuel pump duty cycle to make the same power it will on 93 or E10,” says Sheridan
After a quick prank on VMP owner and tuner Justin Starkey using his remote cutout valves, Sheridan steps back and lets Starkey work his magic. Their first dyno run results read 754 horsepower and 746 ft-lb of torque, not bad at all! It’s made even more impressive when they reveal the rear tire pressure was too low.
After bumping the tire pressure back up, they make another run at it. The supercharger noise is pretty awesome to hear, and clear as day while it’s on the dyno!
Though, everything isn’t so smooth this time, either.
“We’re actually getting wheel hop on the dyno. On high horsepower cars like this, they all go up and down the whole run and will make these spikes. It’s actually because the suspension is too stiff,” says Starkey.
After adjusting the suspension, they decide to put the 2.7-inch pulley on. Reducing the pulley diameter increases the output of the supercharger. The smaller it is, the more boost it makes.
The result is 822 wheel horsepower and 768 wheel torque. Sheridan explains that this is roughly the same power it made with less boost on pump gas with octane booster. His goal is to get this GT500 into the nines at the drag strip. After the tuning session, we get a couple of quick clips of pulls on the street with the exhaust cutouts open. The sound is insane! This car screams proudly and is not one to mess with if you come across it on the streets.
This isn’t the first time we have featured Mustang Lifestyle. They make some delightful Mustang videos, and a subscription to the channel is well worth it! We will definitely be keeping an eye out to see if Sheridan can crack into the nines.