Shelby in Snow

UnhandledException said:

Never owned another Mustang before so no

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Good, glad to hear you're not him. I was starting to worry about you.

Excellent thread op!
Exploring car control safely and driving at the limits is fun on all surfaces:
dirt, ice, water, dry, snow.

Snow is so much fun.
In accumulating snow conditions and heavy rain or standing water, a more concentrated/smaller/higher pressure footprint with high void ratio and heavy siping will get you more traction. Penetrating the snow or water is key to getting the cold weather compound conforming and binding into the road surface.
You might be surprised at how well a 215-235 PA4 or Blizzak LM with a 26.5-27.5 OD would hook in those conditions.
Once the accumulation or standing water is gone, 285 would likely be better again as you would hit the limits overworking the compound hauling ass in cold and dry.

Now if you have camber plates and adjustable rear links:
Dial in an extra -2 camber front and rear and run 37 psi. You will cut into the snow with a narrower footprint. Set back before tossing around on dry ground.
Gets you advantage of a 235 for accumulating, yet have a 285 for cold and dry ass haulage.

sigintel said:

Excellent thread op!
Exploring car control safely and driving at the limits is fun on all surfaces:
dirt, ice, water, dry, snow.

Snow is so much fun.
In accumulating snow conditions and heavy rain or standing water, a more concentrated/smaller/higher pressure footprint with high void ratio and heavy siping will get you more traction. Penetrating the snow or water is key to getting the cold weather compound conforming and binding into the road surface.
You might be surprised at how well a 215-235 PA4 or Blizzak LM with a 26.5-27.5 OD would hook in those conditions.
Once the accumulation or standing water is gone, 285 would likely be better again as you would hit the limits overworking the compound hauling ass in cold and dry.

Now if you have camber plates and adjustable rear links:
Dial in an extra -2 camber front and rear and run 37 psi. You will cut into the snow with a narrower footprint. Set back before tossing around on dry ground.
Gets you advantage of a 235 for accumulating, yet have a 285 for cold and dry ass haulage.

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These are some excellent points that I havent even thought about regarding camber and psi. Except I never messed with the alignment because I thought you need special expensive dealership machinary. I guess its time to learn.

The thing about the tire width is that I wanted to use my stock wheels as snow wheels since I got lightweight forged wheels for summer. Plus I couldnt find a 19” wheel that is narrower and would clear the 15.5” brakes. The other thing to point out is even if I had the narrow wheel, driving on those very narrow tires are not very pleasant when you are driving the car on dry roads. In my town, we really drive on snow in a true sense 4-5 times of the year. So of the 6 months snow tires are on the car, 175 days the car is driven in the same manner it is driven in summer. I remember using 215 tires on my old M3 which had a 265 stock size and the difference was felt in a very negative way. I guess you cant have your cake and eat it too. If I lived in a place like canada where i will drive in snow on a regular basis, I would probably try to do something else BUT then again, there is no wheel that fits that is so narrow.

it can be done

Ford's NA motors are great for driving through the winter. They have low torque at low RPM so it becomes fairly easy to keep the revs down so you don't over power your traction. I've had a few Mustangs I drove year 'round. You can definitely get around with a Mustang on snow tires no problem. I agree that a sporty RWD car is better for recovering from a slide than an SUV or a small FWD vehicle. I have a long driveway that I plow myself so I'm used to driving the Mustang through unplowed snow quite often. The Mustang is better on the road in slippery conditions than my plow truck.

Yes of course a big 4WD is better for getting through deep, heavy snow, but it's much more common to have to contend with slippery conditions and the Mustang will out turn and out stop any big 4WD - assuming the Mustang has good tires on it.

I stopped driving my GT350 very much in the winter mostly to preserve it longer and to avoid being hit by someone on a bad day. If I was made of money I wouldn't bother, but I don't have enough money to buy a new GT350 every few years, so I want to keep mine decent. I do hate driving my Explorer, but it gets through snow and ice easily and I don't care too much if I get hit.

MulhollandMonster said:

The disconnect is amusing. The GT350 is about as self-indulgent and nonutilitarian as it gets. An SUV is more practical by far...I don't drive around muttering to myself what cars people should and shouldn't have.

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We are not talking about practicality here, this is a sports car forum I don't care how practical your SUV is to you, I hate them. They are ugly, they all look like this to me, an ugly Tonka Truck:

torque124 said:

We are not talking about practicality here, this is a sports car forum I don't care how practical your SUV is to you, I hate them. They are ugly, they all look like this to me, an ugly Tonka Truck:

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Final statement : SUVs are so overrated. We dont need big ass SUVs guys. We dont need those houses on wheels (Escalade, Suburban, Tahoe, I am talking about those ugly looking cars).

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Seems we were talking about practicality. Not sure why SUVs get some folks' panties in a wad...Not sure what it has to do with the GT350.

You're autofanatic from youtube aren't you?

torque124 said:

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Personally, I'd like to have that thing.

Strokerswild said:

Personally, I'd like to have that thing.

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That could nearly fit all my guns. I'd rock it...just knowing it enrages some folks is enough for me...;)

At one point in my life I had a tiny pickup like that for a short time. I don't think they enrage many. With a little 4 cylinder and a top speed of 60, they are mostly "cute". To enrage people you need one of the huge vehicles with big knobby tires and then just drive around by yourself on city streets - ideally shooting out clouds of black smoke.

Hack said:

At one point in my life I had a tiny pickup like that for a short time. I don't think they enrage many. With a little 4 cylinder and a top speed of 60, they are mostly "cute". To enrage people you need one of the huge vehicles with big knobby tires and then just drive around by yourself on city streets - ideally shooting out clouds of black smoke.

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don't forget to turn your LED offroad light bar on so you can see the street lines better.

r1racer said:

You're autofanatic from youtube aren't you?

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Nah, I'm just a regular, everyday normal guy...[ame]

Lots of fun cars around my place, but they don't get exercised when salt and de-icer is on the roads. I've worked on way too many old or old-ish cars with nuts and bolts frozen or worn to a nub due to corrosion that I can't bring myself to do that to a sports car.

So, like many, my daily driver is one of the dreaded and hated SUVs. In the winter it gets dedicated wheels with snow tires and in the summer it earns its keep by being a pack mule and hauling race cars and projects around.

With a V6 and a full-frame, it gets decent gas mileage and tows enough to haul all of my toys - except for the GT350. It also hauls dogs (like the little guy in my avatar) and large packages safely and out of the weather.

For those who need to tow or haul things, as well as get through all types of weather, a decent SUV can be a valuable addition to the garage.

Here it is with my '65 vintage racer project heading back to the chassis shop....



And here's the lightweight covered trailer that it pulls when loaded with the Cobra, the '65, or Mrs. Muligan's '67 Camaro.

I love my 2012 4WD Nissan Armada. We have 4 kids, 3 dogs and 3-5mi of backroads that can be quite messy from my house to get to a main highway so it is a great fit for us.

As it pertains to this conversation I’ve been able to help some folks out of pretty bad situations because of what it’s bringing to the table. One of which was a guy in a 5k lb Toyota Sequoia that was buried up to its rear axle in mud...strapped up, turned button to 4L and pulled it out like, apparently, the Tonka toy that it is :lol:

Don’t worry tho...when I get out in the snow this year I will still be on the lookout and stop to help peeps in Gulf’s or other little cars that have no business on messy roads and have accelerated very quickly into snow banks