I will be pulling the car out if storage in 2 months, so what can I spend my time/money on over the winter to help close the gap with the new ZL1? I'm guessing long tube headers would give the best increase in output. What about tires, springs, wings or other considerations?

 

More track time. A faster driver is better than a faster car.

 

Agreed. Develop your skills until you reach the car's limit before yours. Then it's time to look at mods (other than the regular track prep)

 

Thanks for the comments so far.
While I agree more track time is a great investment, it is already something I will be doing. Plus I raced competitively in my 20's so I'm not a novice. More rusty than anything only getting out a few times last year. Still though, I am willing to spend a bit on my car and am curious as to what the engineers at Ford would spend their bucks on. I'm sure the car wasn't 100% as they envisioned it, as cost and manufacturing concessions had to be made. Not looking for wheel suggestions either, as lighter weight is better is obvious. And I likely wont run into the cooling issues our friends in Texas have had at any of the tracks I'll get to from Toronto. Tires, intake, exhaust, balance, handling, airflow management, weight distribution are all areas I am considering. Where's my money best spent?

 

One more thing, I'm looking for an overall improvement suitable for both road and track verses straight track improvements. Based on those racing their Bosses regularly I pretty much know camber plates are a must have.

 

If you are really targeting the ZL1 on the track, the previous comments are correct. Coming out of a supercharged track car, I am seriously anxious to run against the ZL1 on the road course. I will be very surprised if I don't cast a very large shadow of doubt on MT's comparison over the course of a 20-25 minute session.

That said, the best bang for the buck I found in almost 20 track days in the Boss are in order of priority:
DOT4 brake fluid
Brake cooling hoses
Road race pads (no HPS or HP+)
2-piece rotors
Trans cooling scoop
Camber plates
Wider lightweight wheels
R-comp tires or slicks

Then after you get fast in the Boss, cooling mods as needed.

The above will be your best bang for the buck mods to run faster lap times.

Once these have been mastered, more expensive, less impactful mods are:
Roll bar and harness
Springs or coilovers
Long tube headers, intake and tune
And on and on and on.......

 

If you just want to make your Boss faster the long tube headers, full 3" exhaust, CAI and tune are obvious. Next would be a larger throttle body and the Ford Racing cams. I'm not sure how the stock suspension and chassis tune will handle an extra 50+ HP though.

As for wings and spoilers the LS spoiler and splitter have been wind tunnel tested and are functional. The 302S hood also increases downforce by reducing lift.

 

Gary, which race pads and 2-piece rotors do you recommend? Rick, I'd like to go with the long-tube headers as a engineer I spoke with last year at Mustang Alley indicated they showed great gains, but were axed on one issue or another. Was hoping to hear more detail on that.

I have the splitter and tranny scoop on order, but am not a fan of the look of the LS wing. It's still a street driven car as well. Would a GT500 wing with Gurney flap suffice? Or will I be throwing out the balance? Any comparison charts on the various wings available?
I have the 302s grill sitting around waiting paint, and will be ordering the Tiger hood come late March; still working up some paint schemes.

 

i have long tube headers, cai, catted X and flow master huspower mufflers on my car along with a dyno tune and the chassi handles the extra 50whp very, very well. i tracked the car once before the mods and then after and the difference in torque is very welcome.

i would say the mods really depend on what your home track is like too. definitely brakes, and quality dot4 fluid. i've found first hand that not all dot4 fluids are equal. and on pads i killed the HP+ pads in two track days. moving to carbotech now.

i wore out my tires a few months back and moved to the potenza s-04 pole position and they are much better for me than the factory tires were. if you are like me and don't want to swap wheels at the track, you might consider those tires.

get the book called ultimate speed secrets, it helped me greatly on the track, you could always find an indoor kart track and build up your skills until winter is over and you can get on track.

 

I personally like the Hawk DTC 70 front and 60 rear. They flat out stop the car. Now, as you've seen with the infinite brake pad threads, there are many other options and opinions. I run the DBA 5000 2-piece rotors which have now been discontinued in favor of a new "T-slot" rotor from DBA. Since I just put new rings on, I'll be running them until late summer when I'll need to swap to the new T-slot rings. The hats are supposed to be interchangable.

The front splitter was designed to run with the LS wing so if you put it on and leave the stock rear spoiler, it would make the car more tail happy. I'm not sure how much though in all reality. It will depend on the track and have more effect at speeds probably in excess of 100 mph. The GT500 wing would provide more downforce than the stock Boss spoiler, but less than the LS. I am guessing that if you install the 302S grille and Tiger Hood, that's all you'll need for cooling. Keep in mind the Tiger hood reduces lift (increases downforce) so if you add that and the front LS splitter, you're most likely going to need something to keep the rear end down....... I am considering the new wing from Tiger Racing but will see how it handles with the hood before making that call.

 

The GT500 spoiler has a bit less downforce than the LS spoiler but probably not enough to notice. It's also an easier install and was the way I was going to go until I learned the LS spoiler was designed for the Boss project from the start and was used on other models to spread the tooling costs.

If I install the 302S hood I'll use this paint scheme:

 

The biggest issue for the OEMs is that they need to maintain a reasonable emissions threshold buffer - over the entire life of the car. As such, it's no secret that CATs perform best when very hot and that means placing them as close as possible to the heads. Placing CATs at the end of the length of long tube headers would slightly degrade their performance. I think this is probably the biggest single factor why Ford didn't go this route. Clearly, the long tube headers are making HP/TQ gains across the entire RPM range as enough people have already seen.

 

Funny you should post that colour scheme, very similar to what I'm thinking.

https://themustangsource.com/f813/ti...chemes-504938/

Looks like I'll do the grill, hood, camber plates and Bridgestones to start the season, and let budget dictate the rest of the summer. Thanks guys.

 

Kendall - Were you able to resolve the CEL issue with the catted version? I'd like to potentially go this route if I can do it without tossing codes or tuning.

 

its also worth noting that apparently all of the LTs out there are designed so that the o2 sensors go straight across inside the tubes rather than being canted down. apparently not being angled down allows moisture to get inside the sensors and shortens their life. my car throws a cel with p2400 code iirc, something about o2 sensor before the cat. i also know another guy with an 11 5.0 that had a sensor go out using a set of kooks LTs. apparently the talk is that the design of the aftermarket LTs is causing sensor failure.

also gary, mine is using a catted x. kendal may know something my tuner doesn't, but he told me that the cel with headers is due to the delay introduced over and above what the computer expects to see from a return signal to the 02 sensors and the only way to turn that off is by programming in a longer delay or living with the light, at least this side of just turning the sensors off.

 

I'm thinking my budget restrictions may work to my advantage this year. I'll wait till the hardcore trackers here have worked out any issues and budget this for next year.

 

I agree as I used to run a dirt late model. When at the track give me a great driver and a mediocre car or a great car and a mediocre driver I will take the great driver any day of the week as a good driver can over the cars shortcomings but regardless of how good the car is a weak driver will almost always not be the leader.
Bob

 

Tires - The LS tires (Corsa's) are worth a couple seconds over the P-Zero (at a few tracks). The ZL1 front tires are as big as the Boss' rears. It just has more room for wider tires. Getting a 10" wheel on the LS was quite the challenge (and I'm not referring to just bolting it up). You'll need to get really aggressive on tire choice to get within striking distance of the ZL1.

Wheels - Lightweight, but keep track of wheel stiffness. Not sure what info is out there for the aftermarket, but you'll feel a difference with reduced stiffness. Some aftermarket wheels add a fair amount of system compliance that you'll feel at turn in.

Power - Save your pennies and buy a blower. Come on, you know you want one! You guys know all the other basic bolt-ons. I will say that I highly recommend sticking with a Ford Racing calibration for a number of reasons, the primary one being engine longevity.

If you want development stories (headers and such), come to the Boss reunion dinner next year!

 

Thanks for chiming in and I'm feeling good about my mod choices looking at your list, and about resisting the urge to reach for an after-market tune.

 

Hi Gary!! I just spoke to Kooks earlier today and they have just shipped me some new CATs which they believe will do the trick. I'll try to get them on as soon as we get them and then I will let you know. Kooks has really, really been great people to work with and are anxious to get this behind us! More soon!!