Last-gen Shelby GT500 Loses Virtually Zero Power Despite High Mileage
You might think a GT500 with 182k miles might be down some horsepower but a dyno test doesn’t lie.
We don’t often think about it, but cars do lose some power as they begin to gain mileage. This happens, of course, because of wear and tear. But such things are very much dependent on how a car is driven over time, with a high number of variables involved. Thus, we were quite interested in this recent video from Late Model Restoration. LMR employee Jay Walling recently picked up a 2012 Shelby GT500 with a substantial 182,271 miles on the clock, and thought it would be cool to stick the car on a dyno and see what it had left. Needless to say, the results were very interesting.
Before strapping the GT500 into the dyno, host Landon Durham gives us some stock data that we can use for comparison’s sake. “These 2012 Shelbys were rated at 550 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of torque at the flywheel. Of course, this is gonna be at the rear tires. Through that Tremec 6060 six-speed gearbox we could probably expect about 12, 14, maybe 15 percent drivetrain loss. The car has 3.73 rear end gears. And of course, 19-inch front and 20-inch rear tires and a two-piece driveshaft.
The car is running about half-and-half 91 and 93 octane, so it isn’t exactly burning the best fuel. But they let it rip, with some impressive results. “On the initial pull it made 465 hp at 5,800 rpm and 475 lb-ft of torque at 4,000 rpm,” Durham said. “We actually lost quite a bit of power on the second pull. It went to 450 hp at 5,600 and 470 lb-ft at 4,500.”
After a little digging, the pair discover that the GT500 had some faulty relay wiring for the intercooler pump, which is a common problem with high mileage examples. They fixed that issue and made one last run, which netted the best results of the day – 486 hp at 5,900 rpm and 486 lb-ft at 4,200 rpm. That’s only around a 12 percent drivetrain loss, which is pretty amazing. In fact, this GT500 has likely barely lost any power at all after racking up 180k+ miles.
We already knew that the S197-gen GT500 was a fantastic, reliable car. But now that we know how well it retains power over time, it only adds to the car’s reputation. If you’re in the market for affordable performance, it’s certainly hard to beat, if nothing else.
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