I got my new issue of motor trend in the mail today, flipped through it right quick. As i always do, i flip to the end where they have a list of all the cars they have tested recently, and next to the 05 mustang gt, it says that it was a preproduction msutang....

does this mean that maybe it had a lil more umph, and thats why motor trend's times are better than all the other magazines/personal road tests. Or was it simply because the one they drove had most likely already been broken in.

Anyone else notice this?

 

While 'ringers' is something that may or may not have been done at any given time.
A ringer would hurt the car in the long run.

Unless something changed between preproduction and production, the power should be the same. Taking into consideration that power will never be the exact same at any given time, it should be close.

Your absolutely right, we have no idea mileage on the car.
If it was broken in, it could have more oomph.

Lets keep in mind that MOST magazines try to give a real world expectation. The 'most average joes' time.
The 05 Auto GT that they used however, didn't use the conventional launch technique that joe user would use at a stop light.

 

Motor Trend car was a FEU build (Field Evaluation Unit). It was not a ringer. That would be unethical. J1 level units will certainly be better than FEU vintage cars. The likely cause for discrepancy in 0-60 times is test repeatability, driver differences, environmental conditions, and mathematic adjustments made by each magazine to account for differences in temperature and altitude.

 

Hardly a ringer -- we've already had a regular owner get his 5-speed manual GT to a 13.71 on street tires. So 13.6 for a rag who in theory has more experienced drivers makes sense to me. Shortly we'll start to see sub-13.6 numbers from regular joes.

 

Didn't MT also dyno it and it was putting the level of RWHP that would be expected for an auto GT? If so, hardly a ringer...

 

Japaneese companies submit ringers all the time to mags. They used to beef up crash test cars before NHSTA started just buying them off dealer lots(part of the reason for that actually).

 

maybe that hideous restriction in the hose from the airbox was removed.I removed mine and replaced with a flow straightner from ground control and noticed a big improvement.I took the entire intake hose off and blew through it with not very good results,then I removed the restriction and put in the small honeycomb part from ground control and blew again.There was no restriction and air just flowed out.No idle or driveability problems so far.Im sure that emissions restriction costs about 10 hp.

 

did you have a big dirt ring around your mouth?

 

Motor Trend car was a FEU build (Field Evaluation Unit). It was not a ringer. That would be unethical. J1 level units will certainly be better than FEU vintage cars. The likely cause for discrepancy in 0-60 times is test repeatability, driver differences, environmental conditions, and mathematic adjustments made by each magazine to account for differences in temperature and altitude. [/b][/quote]
Good to know.

 

did you have a big dirt ring around your mouth? [/b][/quote]
nope,the car is brand new. B)

 

Somebody needs to dyno it with and without the airbox restriction.