03 Mach 1 versus 07 Mustang GT: Drag Racing

[Five Oh B]

I sold my 03 Mach 1 a year ago to buy an 07 Mustang GT.

I've been thoroughly dissecting my 1/4 mile timeslips from my 03 Mach 1 (manual trans) versus my 07 GT Coupe (auto trans) to see how close I'm getting the 07 to the Mach 1's performance. I'm just thinking out loud, so here are my observations...

The cars are very evenly modded. The Mach 1 requires 91 octane gas from the factory and I've retuned the GT for premium gas via my Predator Tuner. The Mach 1 is a manual trans, but I added a 3,800 rpm stall converter to the GT's automatic so that it launches like a stick shift car. The Mach 1 has 4.30 gears while the GT has 4.10 gears (bigger overdrive and higher redline in the Mach 1 allowed a little more gear). That's it. No other mods to either car other than BFG 275/40/17 drag radials. Race weight for each car with me in it: Mach 1 = 3,550 lbs, GT = 3,620 lbs.

While looking over timeslips (50+ for the Mach 1 and about 30 for the 07 GT), I threw out the slips where I made an obvious mistake (missed shift, blazed the tires) or the weather was outrageous (90+ degree & high humidity). Then I grabbed the ten best timeslips for each car and averaged those out instead of just looking at the ultimate best for each car. That allowed me to concentrate on repeatable numbers that can be meaningfully compared.

It's amazing how close the two cars are in a short race, but then the 4V heads on the Mach 1 start to shine at higher speeds (duh!). Here is the average for the ten best timeslips for each car.

R/T: 0.116 (M1), 0.092 (GT)
60 foot ET: 1.86 (M1), 1.88 (GT)
330 foot ET: 5.44 (M1), 5.51 (GT)

1/8 mi ET: 8.42 (M1), 8.55 (GT)
1/8 mi MPH: 82.66 (M1), 81.22 (GT)

1000 foot ET: 10.97 (M1), 11.17 (GT)

1/4 mi ET: 13.14 (M1), 13.39 (GT)
1/4 mi MPH: 104.2 (M1), 101.7 (GT)

As much as I miss my Mach 1 (sold it to a buddy when I bought the 07), at least the 07 is almost where I left off with the Mach 1. A couple more easy mods, or drop some weight out of the car, and it'll be there.