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Here is my '20 Ecboost as purchased in September of 2020. I originally started my search looking for a Performance pack car....My original check list was a Kona blue PP car with a 6 speed and I tried to buy a 2018 out of Scottsdale but we couldn't agree on price. Then I drove a '19 Premium with the 10 speed auto and realized they had paddle shifters so I could have the auto and manual shifting ability so I started considering the auto cars. Then I found a Kona Blue '18 with auto in TN but the girl was upside down so we couldn't agree on price on that one either. Then I found a '19 white PP car with auto at Adamson Ford in Birmingham with 2200 miles on it so I called. The guy I ended up with was named "Sparky Sparks" ....as bad as it sounds, he was your typical used car salesman so when he lied to me about how they "had the car advertised for less than what they had in it" and I called him out on it I knew it was a waste of time. I was more informed about the car than he was and Sparky was the one that ended the call and the next day I bought this car at another dealership that didn't play games like Sparky. While still looking for Kona blue they couldn't come up with one that color so I considered others and selttled on Magnetic Gray....looking back I'm glad I chose Magnetic as it really came together with my vision for the car. So the car I wanted was simple...being an SVO enthusiast, I wanted something like an SVO and with only the options I wanted...I didn't need leather or heated and cooled seats etc. I wanted 2 options...the 10 speed automatic and the 101A package because it was essential that I have the track modes. I decided against the Performance Pack car because I felt that since it was going to be a shop mule for R&D and to show what can be built out of a more average Ecoboost, the PP package wasn't what I wanted...I could add better parts on my own. Wheels didn't matter, I hated all of them so I knew that was one of the first modifications I would do. I also hated the factory spoiler.
The first modification was wheels...with just 300 miles on the car I called Voxx and ordered a staggered set of Masi wheels in silver. 19x8.5 up front and 19x9.5 out back. I bought the Federal Evoluzion tires for it and was impressed with the grip...much stickier than the factory 18" goodyears.
The next step is livery....our 86 SVO is done up with the style of the old 1985 Scott Pruitt Motorcraft Trans Am race car so we decided to keep in the theme of the shop and look that we would try out a similar package on the new Ecoboost. Since it had never been tried on a S550 we had no idea how it would come out and we also wanted this one to be more subtle than in your face like the '86 SVO. So we took both cars over to BEI Graphics here in Odenville for the graphics treatment.
Trey at BEI called us to come over and check out the car...he knocked it out of the park! The color was sublte and he laid the graphics out to look perfect on the S550 platform. Different lighting and effects really give the car different looks. We also made our own custom Billet SVO fender badge...The Modern Ecoboost is essentially what the SVO Mustang was in the mid 80's so why not label it what Ford should have done...the SVO. Speaking with a Ford Executive I asked why they didn't use "SVO" and the response was that SVO represented "Special Vehicle Operations" which is a defunct organization and while Ford still maintains rights to the name, they used Ecoboost instead because SVO no longer existed within Ford.
Next I had gotten wind that one of my local customers who used to have a Mustang but after totalling it had bought an LS powered Monte Carlo he had modded and tuned was saying he thought he could take me in a drag race. He worked at the local auto auction and had driven an ecoboost and felt his LS Monte could get the job done...so I called him out on Facebook and said I heard he wanted some...so come get you some! lol. I had never run the car at the track yet so I had no idea what it would do but I was pretty confident in it. My research had shown me that I should expect a best of around a 13.8 in the quarter mile. My first pass off the street with no cool down and on street tires was a 13.3 @104mph...I was so shocked I asked James at the Tree if the timing lights were correct...he said yes, they had just been certified recently...I was shocked....Tim had not yet arrived with his car but once he arrived nobody told him what I ran...we lined up and I took the win each time out of 4 passes. When talking to him about his experience with the auction car I asked if he had put it in drag race mode...he responded "There's a drag race mode?!?"...so his impression was probably from a base model with no driving modes or if it did have them he had no idea how to use them. It was a fun day and the car performed beyond my expectations.
One of my friends owns BNR Supercars, he builds turbochargers for various vehicles...GTR, Mazdaspeed, RX7, WRX etc...he had already done a turbo for the ST and he created his all new design for the Mustang Ecoboost. One of the other reasons I bought this car was so we had a car to do some test fitting and prototyping on...so with only 2300 miles on the car we pulled the stock turbo and test fitted Bryan's new Ecoboost Turbo. You can see the size difference...the only modification needed was to grind down a casting boss on the block which affects nothing. The factory heat shield fits the turbo, downpipe and everything else except the air intake tube obviously fits as it should. We then put everything back and shipped the turbo to a guy in Texas with a built short block to test some numbers. He made 609 to the rear wheels through a manual transmission! So at this point the turbo goes into production(it's now available...I'm recounting the process from 2 years ago).
SUPERCHARGED RED ROCKET ------------------Master-Moderator
Joined: May 11, 2006
Posts: 10,645
Likes: 2,512
From: Carnegie, PA
Originally Posted by svopaul
Trey at BEI called us to come over and check out the car...he knocked it out of the park! The color was sublte and he laid the graphics out to look perfect on the S550 platform. Different lighting and effects really give the car different looks. We also made our own custom Billet SVO fender badge...The Modern Ecoboost is essentially what the SVO Mustang was in the mid 80's so why not label it what Ford should have done...the SVO. Speaking with a Ford Executive I asked why they didn't use "SVO" and the response was that SVO represented "Special Vehicle Operations" which is a defunct organization and while Ford still maintains rights to the name, they used Ecoboost instead because SVO no longer existed within Ford.
Most definitely like the look of the new wheels, Paul, along with the new shop car ...
Thanks, I also have another set of wheels...a set of 20" HRE's that I picked up....because it seems like a woman and her shoes I seem to have multiple sets of wheels for each car I have(do that math...LOL). I haven't run the HRE set yet though. I have more i'll update here as I get a chance.
