GT350

amnesiac

amnesiac

Greenie N00B Member
Greenie Member
I'm making a thread for the car so I have somewhere to keep info on it. Mustang forums are okay so far but I've been reading a mazdaspeed forum daily for the last ~8 years so it'd be crazy to quit now.

In April I bought a 2017 GT350. At the time I was looking for something with a V8 and a manual transmission as I'd never had one, and I figured at some point they won't be making cars like that anymore. I was split between a ZL1 and the GT350, but in the end I liked the way the Shelby looked more and once I heard it I was in love. When I got it it had ~6800 miles and was stock. Luckily the previous owner had service records and had done a paint protection film so it's in pretty good shape.

So far I've deleted the resonators and added some rear subframe support. I just got a nGauge and an E85 tune, so we'll see how that goes.

Here it is at the dealership:
Showroom-Small.jpg


And here's a picture of it at home:
Angle-Small.jpg
 
Congratulations sir! Please enjoy it!

I am so jealous, I was just talking about getting one a few minutes ago to the wife.
 
Mauro_Penguin said:
Congratulations sir! Please enjoy it!

I am so jealous, I was just talking about getting one a few minutes ago to the wife.
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Thanks! You should just go get one, I could use someone who knows anything about Mustangs.

I've done a few things since the original post. I bought a E85 tune from Lund Racing and converted over to that. It runs well, if anything it's actually a little quieter I think. Feels faster, but who knows. There isn't a GT350 built into Vdyno and I didn't do a log on the original tune so there's no way to see what gains I made. On the downside I'm getting 11.3 MPG 3/4 through this tank of gas. I don't care, but thats pretty low.

I added some Ford Performance lowering springs. They are a ~3/4" drop, which I think is as low as I could do and still get up and down my driveway. Here's a bad picture where you can't see how low it is with the shadows:



I found someone selling the rear wheels cheap online, so I bought them. From the factory the car comes with 10.5" wheels in the front and 11" in the back. I wanted to try and square it up so I can rotate tires. To make that work you can buy the front hubs from a GT350R and put them on, that gives your wheel studs enough length to fit a 38mm spacer and the rear wheel. That also makes it match the offset of a GT350R, so it lines right up.



That's about it. There's not much else I want to do to mod the car until I can supercharge it, but that's at least a year away. So far it's been great and a blast to drive.
 
Negative, we will be house hunting soon. A GT350 is a bit far in my future, unless of course someone crashes and totals my GenPu or the wife's mustang.

I know a bit about mustang's, my first car was a fox body. I've worked on several SN95's and my wife has a 2010 GT that we have been tinkering with. Each body style has had its major changes and always for the better. The S550 I only know a little bit about.

Ford Racing springs (and most other products) are awesome!

@monkey.bones.007 has a Roush 3, he is a little more knowledgeable about this platform than me.

Already having plans for a supercharger... LOL... you might be smoking tires in every gear
 
Mauro_Penguin said:
Negative, we will be house hunting soon. A GT350 is a bit far in my future, unless of course someone crashes and totals my GenPu or the wife's mustang.

I know a bit about mustang's, my first car was a fox body. I've worked on several SN95's and my wife has a 2010 GT that we have been tinkering with. Each body style has had its major changes and always for the better. The S550 I only know a little bit about.

Ford Racing springs (and most other products) are awesome!

@monkey.bones.007 has a Roush 3, he is a little more knowledgeable about this platform than me.

Already having plans for a supercharger... LOL... you might be smoking tires in every gear
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I do love the Roush and the Surcharger is nice, but Id go turbos if I had a choice. The always there power is good but I'm at altitude which means I lose some of the pep. You can still spin out easily though. All I've done so far is replaced the Roush Stage 1 coils, wheels, replaced the trans bushing, and a drive shaft safety loop. I've got a new clutch line and differential bushings to put in, but I've been waiting as I decided whether I want to replace the 2 piece driveshaft and swap in an after market shifter and x pipe. Its got more than enough power so I'm working on getting the power to the ground.
459fc70f87dbbe746f46f2ad6a9fb9a9.jpg


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@monkey.bones.007 You have nothing to lose swapping to a 1 price driveshaft. I'm kind of surprised that you have a 2 piece on the S550, given the IRS and diff mounting.

Next mod for us is an MGW shifter. Did Ford continue the stupid design of mounting the back half of the shifter on the chassis itself? On the S197 it binds like a mofo and screws with high RPM shifting.
 
I read about a lot of people going to the MGW shifter. I'd love to try one and see if it's better, but as it stands right now the stock shifter is by far the best I've used, way better than the mazdaspeed or sti I had.

I hadn't considered changing out the driveshaft, I'm not sure if the cost/performance is worth it.
 
Mauro_Penguin said:
@monkey.bones.007 You have nothing to lose swapping to a 1 price driveshaft. I'm kind of surprised that you have a 2 piece on the S550, given the IRS and diff mounting.

Next mod for us is an MGW shifter. Did Ford continue the stupid design of mounting the back half of the shifter on the chassis itself? On the S197 it binds like a mofo and screws with high RPM shifting.
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That they did and when under load trying to shift it sometimes gets locked out due to the transmission shifting. Which is why I upgraded the bushings.

There isn't a performance gain from the one piece, its more for not snapping it and then it flops around. You'll get more nvh but the car is already a vibrator and will be more so with the dif bushings.

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You guys must have a fairly lightweight unit then. On the S197 the 2 peice is heavy and has a habit of eating the bearings on the half way joint.

@amnesiac I wouldn't bother with the shifter or driveshaft on your car yet. IIRC there are a few bushings that you can upgrade on the car to make it feel a little more solid.

The R knuckles you mentioned should also help correct bumpsteer and roll center in the front. The GT500 & new GT350 have these revised knuckles already.

What kind of oil and coolant temps do you see? I'm curious as to how much heat that Voodoo engine puts out.
 
Coolant runs around 190 and oil ~200. I haven't tracked the car at this point so I'm not sure what they'd look like if I was continuously beating on it.
 
I've seen 230 coolant temps at the track with the added cooling capacity the PP gives the 16. I don't have an oil temp number but a dummy bar so I don't know what it reads at track. It's never given me the oh shit warning.

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