I recently bought an 06 GT from a dealer. 32k miles, one owner. According to the Carfax report the owner was from around Avon Ohio??? Without speaking with the original owner, I’m trying to figure out what mods he (or she) did to the car. Some are obvious, some are not. One in particular, it has black Ford Racing valve covers which I’m assuming are not stock. So the question is, when they replaced the valve covers, did they install performance cams? I mean you are right there right?? So is there an easy way to figure out if my car has upgraded cams?
Since the dealership I bought it from acquired it from an auction, they didn’t know much about the mods.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks
Vanz

 

painted valve covers is a fairly common, cheap, and easy mod . . . cams are much more expensive and complicated . . . so it is very possible that the prior owner did just paint the valve covers without changing the cams

I am pretty sure that any aftermarket cams would have a distinct "lopey" idle sound and that is probably the easiest way to tell if your car has aftermarket cams; the other way would be to take off a valve cover and look at them to find the part number markings

I assume you did NOT get a tuner device with the car. If it has aftermarket cams, it should also have a custom tune to go with them. Unfortunately most dealers (and auction house) would have no clue about this, so it is possible that it does have a tune but they did not tell you and did not give you the tuner. If you can take some pictures and post them here, somebody can probably recognize the most common and obvious mods, such as aftermarket "cold air intake"

 

Hey Bert! Thanks for the response! I have attached a few pictures….. definitely Ford Racing valve covers… Optima Battery with additional cables that I would assume has to do with the stereo amplifier in the trunk. And I just discovered that the previous owner installed Steeda underdrive pullies.
The car has factory mufflers and a K&N CAI (which doesn’t require a tune)
as far as I can tell the car hasn’t been ‘tuned’…. No handheld device , no plaque or sticker etc. BAMA tech said the only way to tell is to take it to Ford and have them flash the factory tune and see if it runs differently…. Not happening

Etched Ford Racing valve covers

 

Everything looks pretty stock to me, except the UDP's, battery cables and the shaker scoop and intake . . I am a little surprised that does not need a tune, but I can believe it since the tube diameter looks same as stock (is not huge)

Bama info is not quite correct: you can take the car to a Ford dealer and they can check the ECU to see if it has been "Flashed" meaning a new tune has been loaded. You do NOT need to "load factory tune and see if it runs crappy." The dealer cannot tell what changes were made in the tune, they can only tell that the system was reflashed with a non-factory tune. This would be good to know, but you can live without it.

And obviously we can't tell about the cams from those photos. Does it idle smooth or "lopey" ?

 

I'm going to say that she idles pretty smoothly.. So I would think the cams are stock. Thanks Bert for your input!