No Kill Like Overkill: 1,000 HP Shelby GT500 Struggles on Dragstrip
Who knew adding power to the ferocious Shelby GT500 could make it tricky at the track?
In the event that you, say, wisely decided to opt out the boiling cesspool that was 2020, as a Mustang fan, you should probably know one thing: The 2020 Shelby GT500 is an absolute beast. Not only is it packing a whopping 760 horsepower, independent outlets have proven it’s not just a straight-line terror, either. Seriously, during the trials for Motor Trend’s Best Driver’s Car competition, the ferocious snake made it around Laguna Seca quicker than any of the competition, which included high-dollar kit like the Ferrari F8 Tributo, Lamborghini Huracán Evo, and Porsche 911 Turbo S.
So yup, 2020 was a pretty good year for the latest Shelby. But you should probably ask your friends to fill you in on the less-good stuff which happened last year.
That said, we all know that regardless of how much power a machine is boasting from the factory, there are always going to be some folks who need more. Rudy Canal of Automotive Performance is one of those people, and after swapping the stock supercharger pulley for a 2.65 unit for GripTec, his machine is making more than 1,000 horsepower. Naturally, Canal wanted to see what all the extra poke would mean for his quarter-mile times, so he headed to Famoso Raceway outside of Bakersfield to find out.
Toward the beginning of the clip, Canal says that his biggest problem is going to be getting the car to hook up, since he’s still on the stock rubber. And unsurprisingly, he’s proven correct. Over the course of the session, he made ten passes.
The first three were basically shakedown runs — if you could even call them that. The first attempt saw the car bog, and on the second attempt, the clutch overheated during the burnout, so he couldn’t even make it down the track. On the third pass he adjusted the GT500 launch control rpm to 3,500, but even that was enough to blow the tires off. As he says toward the middle of the video, “this car is a process to get down the track.”
Of course, some trial and error is to be expected — and Canal never gets flustered. For the four go, he dialed launch control rpm all the way down to 2,500 rpm — and it’s then he starts seeing some real progress. The sweet spot for this tuned Shelby ultimately turns out to be setting the launch control to 3,000 rpm, which lets him make a blistering 10.0-second, 145-mph pass. For those keeping score at home, that shaves a second and a half off the factory time, and given that this is his first outing with the car? I’m expecting to see even more improvement in later episodes.
The isn’t a lot of action toward the end of the video, but if you’re curious about what it’s like to actually take this beast to the strip, and how to best navigate settings like line-lock, there’s plenty of interesting info. So if you’re lucky enough to have access to one of these bad boys, or are just a total car geek, make sure to stick around!
Photos: YouTube
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