2015-17 Mustang GT Ford Performance Power Packs

[pacomicro]

I already have my next two mods, cover for the cai and Tribotex additive

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[ValidusTalon]

I know a lot of people have been commenting about enclosing the GT350 CAI due to high temps in traffic. I have a power pack 3 that I installed since I'm on the road courses here in SoCal quite a bit. Until recently, I didn't have a need for enclosing the CAI because it works just fine on the track once you get rolling. However, since I'm going to be installing some TrackSpec louvers to aid in cooling and help with evacuating air for a little more downforce on the front, the louvers will create a rather large opening directly over the intake. I don't want to worry about water, but more importantly, I was concerned that air exiting through the vent directly over the CAI when traveling at high speed would create a vacuum effect that may affect power. As a result, I decided to fab up my own enclosure.

Thanks to the excellent write up from NvrFinished, and a previous one from honeybadger, I did the same thing - sealed the airbox using the same materials and basic instructions provided. The primary difference for me was using a thicker sheet of Acrylic, which is harder to work with but Home Depot didn't have the right size sheet of Lexan. A minor difference was having to form an edge around the MMD radiator extensions, but that wasn't
too difficult. Also, NverFinished suggested, I made a cardboard template (pizza box top!!) - made the initial shaping a lot easier. Anyway, again, thank you NvrFinished!!! Also, ignore the extra hole

Obligatory pictures for proof

Pizza Box Template

Finished Product

 

[TexasRebel]

It's threads like this that make me remember why things like this exist.

 

[Wvmike]

Remember, power is work being done. I don't give a crap about torque other than for traction purposes and at what RPM it is made at.

Torque on a dyno graph alone doesn't illustrate how much work is actually being done by the motor.

I'm sorry, this is all wrong. I guess its time for a physics lesson.

Torque most certainly is work. One pound raised 1 foot is 1 ft lb. That's why its measured in lb ft or ft lb, same thing. Horsepower on the other hand is the rate of doing work.
1 horsepower is 550 ft lb / sec.

 

[TexasRebel]

I'm sorry, this is all wrong. I guess its time for a physics lesson.

Torque most certainly is work. One pound raised 1 foot is 1 ft lb. That's why its measured in lb ft or ft lb, same thing. Horsepower on the other hand is the rate of doing work.
1 horsepower is 550 ft lb / sec.

Sorry, no.

Torque is not "one pound raised one foot". Torque is "one pound applied about an axis at a distance of one foot." There is a fundamental difference. Work involves movement, torque does not.

One way to tell (which very few non-technical folks seem to care about) is that torque has a unit of lb-ft while work has a unit of ft-lb... sure there's no difference mathematically, but there is in text.

Now don't forget you can measure angular work... you just need angular displacement... or 2pi * number of revolutions.
Then just like work = force x displacement... angular work = torque x angular displacement.

 

[Ass-asin]

And also my foil tape / flashing mod to cover the gasp at the inlet tube to the intake (I forgot to take a pic when I had the bumper off, but you can see it decently well to get the idea). It may not look super sexy, but you can't really see it normally and it gets the job done. Maybe we could get VelossaTech to make a special version of their ram air duct with an extended bottom and a ramp to close off the gap:

I’ve been reading your past posts trying to digest what all you’re explaining and have determined I’m too dumb so allow me to ask: if I have a 2017 GT PP with stock wheels and tires, should I go PP2 if PP3 for everyday driving?

 

[hlh1]

I just bought a 19GT PP1 and don't need the new-in-box power pack 2 that I bought for $611 shipped just two months ago. I'll sell to anyone who wants it for less than my cost; $580 plus shipping to you. Paypal only.

 

[thelostotter]

I’ve been reading your past posts trying to digest what all you’re explaining and have determined I’m too dumb so allow me to ask: if I have a 2017 GT PP with stock wheels and tires, should I go PP2 if PP3 for everyday driving?

PP2 makes more sense for a daily driver in my opinion - it makes more power than the PP3 until about ~6500 rpm.

 

[Freedom]

I’ve been reading your past posts trying to digest what all you’re explaining and have determined I’m too dumb so allow me to ask: if I have a 2017 GT PP with stock wheels and tires, should I go PP2 if PP3 for everyday driving?

His graphs show that in each gear, the pp3 pulls at higher rpms. If you rarely go past 6K it’s probsbly best of you buy pp2.

 

[bnightstar]

His graphs show that in each gear, the pp3 pulls at higher rpms. If you rarely go past 6K it’s probsbly best of you buy pp2.

But for me for track duties PP3 is a must that 250 RPM in each gear will give you a lot during track driving. And also should improve 0-60 times more than PP2 will ever will with the low end torque.

 

[Ass-asin]

But for me for track duties PP3 is a must that 250 RPM in each gear will give you a lot during track driving. And also should improve 0-60 times more than PP2 will ever will with the low end torque.

Do both raise your redline or just the PP3?

 

[bnightstar]

Do both raise your redline or just the PP3?

PP2 rise it to 7250 PP3 to 7500 so you have extra 250 RPM in PP3 in each gear. This for me is valuable a lot.

 

[JohnD]

Personally, I'm not thrilled with this PP2 kit at all. I had it professionally installed to ensure the engine warranty would remain intact and there were no problems at all downloading and installing the new tune file. I also closed in the top of the airbox as others have done. More than one person has speculated that closing in the box may be a problem, but it shouldn't be since it is designed to seal to the hood anyway and when that fails due to hood fluttering it's sucking in hot engine room air.

It has done zero for performance. I have video data and compared speeds on track at various places and it is making no difference at all, exactly the same peak speed in the same place on the track before and after the kit, 145 mph at the top of the hill on the back straight at Mosport. It never felt any different to me after it was installed, but if there were gains they should show up in the data and it isn't there.

I was having a lot of problems with a miss right after shifting 3-4 and 4-5, found out that was the Steeda clutch spring causing that problem, put the stock one back in and it went away. Steeda spring is so light the computer reads a depressed clutch and goes into no lift shift mode. I tried the no lift shift mode and that's a recipe for lunching a gearbox in short order, the power comes back in so hard I was getting wheelspin on a 4-5 shift at over 100 mph. That's on 220TW 305's.

It has a more aggressive throttle curve which I think does not help driveability on track, it comes in way harder sooner than it did stock and I have had to change the way I drive the car which I don't like, corner exits are harder to modulate now.

The only useful thing it did was let me run in 4th a little longer to avoid several places where I was bumping the rev limiter before where I would have to do a quick 5th and back to 4th. But after 6750 it really goes flat anyway, the stock manifold doesn't make power up there. But I could have got that with the PP1 kit and saved some bucks. Seriously thinking about reverting to the stock tune but not sure what that would do with the bigger throttle body in there now.

Lap times are not better, in fact so far have not been able to match my previous bests. Stuck with it now, but I consider it a really bad choice.

 

[accel]

Personally, I'm not thrilled with this PP2 kit at all. I had it professionally installed to ensure the engine warranty would remain intact and there were no problems at all downloading and installing the new tune file. I also closed in the top of the airbox as others have done. More than one person has speculated that closing in the box may be a problem, but it shouldn't be since it is designed to seal to the hood anyway and when that fails due to hood fluttering it's sucking in hot engine room air.

It has done zero for performance. I have video data and compared speeds on track at various places and it is making no difference at all, exactly the same peak speed in the same place on the track before and after the kit, 145 mph at the top of the hill on the back straight at Mosport. It never felt any different to me after it was installed, but if there were gains they should show up in the data and it isn't there.

I was having a lot of problems with a miss right after shifting 3-4 and 4-5, found out that was the Steeda clutch spring causing that problem, put the stock one back in and it went away. Steeda spring is so light the computer reads a depressed clutch and goes into no lift shift mode. I tried the no lift shift mode and that's a recipe for lunching a gearbox in short order, the power comes back in so hard I was getting wheelspin on a 4-5 shift at over 100 mph. That's on 220TW 305's.

It has a more aggressive throttle curve which I think does not help driveability on track, it comes in way harder sooner than it did stock and I have had to change the way I drive the car which I don't like, corner exits are harder to modulate now.

The only useful thing it did was let me run in 4th a little longer to avoid several places where I was bumping the rev limiter before where I would have to do a quick 5th and back to 4th. But after 6750 it really goes flat anyway, the stock manifold doesn't make power up there. But I could have got that with the PP1 kit and saved some bucks. Seriously thinking about reverting to the stock tune but not sure what that would do with the bigger throttle body in there now.

Lap times are not better, in fact so far have not been able to match my previous bests. Stuck with it now, but I consider it a really bad choice.

I do not have any power pack, but sounds like for you pp3 would be better option.

Myself - I'm only having occasional autocross once a year or so, just stock tune is fine. If anythind I'd appreciate higher red line as I hit rev limiter a couple of times

 

[TheLion70x77]

I’ve been reading your past posts trying to digest what all you’re explaining and have determined I’m too dumb so allow me to ask: if I have a 2017 GT PP with stock wheels and tires, should I go PP2 if PP3 for everyday driving?

It all depends. As others have said, if your not revving it out regularly, Power Pack 2 will serve you better. Also on shorter road courses Power Pack 2 will also serve you better if your don't re-gear the car. Where the car makes power matters as much as how much average power it makes. With the same gearing, Power Pack 2 can out perform Power Pack 3 on some tracks, especially shorter ones, where your not hitting higher average speeds and not staying in the upper reaches of the rev range. Power Pack 2's broader mid-range may result in higher average power in those situations.

Now, on that same track, if you re-gear the car (shorter final drive), you'll use more of Power Pack 3's power band. Or on a longer / larger / higher speed track even with the stock gearing, that may also be the case. I would NOT recommend Power Pack 3 for anyone with 3.31's or even 3.55's on stock tire diameters. Gearing is simply too high to be practically useful. I'm running 3.73's (PP car) with 26.6" tall tires (275/35R19) and think it's just right for Power Pack 2, so my final drive is still 4% shorter than stock on stock tires.

If I go Power Pack 3, I'll drop my final drive down to 3.91's. To get better acceleration, you need to compact the gearing to take advantage of the rev range unless you need more RPM in each gear. I prefer to keep the car in 3rd and 4th as much as possible, in those cases shorter gearing provides better acceleration. And my top speed even with 4% final drive is still 151 in 5th. 115 in 4th and 90 in 3rd. But the shorter final drive and low rotating mass (48 lbs lighter) produces impressive response / acceleration in the upper gears.

Look at my thrust charts. I personally think running a shorter final drive and staying in the taller gears (3rd, 4th and 5th) more often is more beneficial than running out the shorter gears a little more. The thrust charts with Power Pack 2 and 35 series tires are darn close to the 6th gen SS with the LT1 and nobody can deny it's a darn fast car and easier to drive than a stock GT by miles. It's a drivers car. But the GT has the bones of one, it just wasn't set up that way from the factory (unless you buy a newer 2018+ Performance Pack Level 2 or GT350). Gearing is a big part of that.

Power Pack 2 is very similar in power band to the LT1, just takes another 500 rpm to do it. But when paired with the MT-82 ratios it does provide better granularity than the TR6060 in the SS, 2nd gets you out of the hole fast on hair pins (30~40 mph), 3rd is good for most mid-speed corners (50 to 60ish) and 4th is good for high speed sweepers (90ish). In the SS you have 1st (54mph top), 2nd (80 mph top) and 3rd (111 mph top). Gearing is just a bit shorter and not as fine. Less shifting, but not quite as efficient use of power either. It's a trade off.

For street, I recommend Power Pack 2 and running a square 275/35R19 tire setup on lightweight wheels. The car's response is awesome and gearing is just right in my opinion. It's a short / medium track setup that also works well on the street to make full use of the 5.0's power band.

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