De-tune a Coyote.

[MAGS1]

Various store and school parking lots were all fair game back in the day. Frozen lakes as well.

I think it would still be valid now even with 4WD/AWD and the nannies therein, since they aren't infallible.

My wife’s Acadia with AWD does do very well in the snow but I agree AWD and nannies aren’t a cure all for knowing how to drive properly tough conditions. Ice in particular doesn’t care how many nannies you have (unless you have studded tires which are illegal for passenger vehicles in IL).

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[tdstuart]

Coming from a teenager. The kid is going to dumb shit no matter what the hp is. He needs to learn what spinning feels like and how to control it. It’s not spinning that will get him, it’s not knowing he is spinning and not knowing how to react. First time on a drag strip I couldn’t tell how bad my car was spinning and I ended up doing a 360, never had an issue on the street controlling wheel spin and loss of traction (even while spinning while going 80+ on a wet freeway).

I think you should sign him and yourself up for a track day with an instructor, and a skid pad aswell. Then you can both learn the limits of the car and how to control it. Also learning how to not over correct and under correct is very important. I’ve just gotten lucky with that haha.

He needs to learn how to survive all the dumb stuff he will do. I think I almost crashed more times in my moms 128i convertible bmw than my fbo mustang gt. Not because the bmw was a bad car, but because I was learning the limits of cars and trying dumb stuff. Bmw had like half the power of my mustang.

 

[Firsttexan]

If possible, why not do a father-son high performance driving school?

Or take it out to the strip where he can get a feel for the power range of the car in a safe environment.

Anyplace but the street.

 

[AvalancheSVT]

people don't realize how light these cars are. a junkyard pushrod 302 would be hella fast.

 

[WildHorse]

Limit the pedal travel. Should be easy to do with a kit car.

 

[Jackson1320]

with hptuners mpvi2, mpvi2+, mpvi3 tunning devices you can adjust torque and timing all the way up through the rpm's. so you can control how much torque horsepower it has at any given RPM

 

[Dapepper9]

Pushrod 302 is probably the best option with the added benefit of being more budget friendly. If set on coyote, detuning could be as simple as lowering the rev limit. Below 4500-5000, they don't make much power without rpm. Then you could also incrementally raise it as you get more comfortable

 

[ihasnostang]

intake restrictor? No clue how the computer would handle it

 

[mejohn50]

The manual PCMs appear to have working torque truncation by gear. I assume the Ford Performance control pack has the same ability. That would be the easiest way. No need to do any rev limits or physical changes to anything. Change the torque you want for each gear and flash it. 10 minutes with HP Tuners and you can change it whenever you want. You can also ramp in torque based on the selected gear so as you get into higher gears you can allow full power if you wanted.

Another easy way would be to limit the pedal ratio to the driver demand table (as @engineermike alluded to). Make 100% only 50% or something and make it linear or whatever felt right. Again, 10 minutes with HP Tuners.

 

[Racinjason65]

Another option would be buying a track prepped Miata, you could have a track toy that your kid could learn in and also competitively race in SCCA and or NASA that would build skills and keep him busy for quite some time. That would allow you to build your kit car for the street that you can keep nice without a bunch of rock chips in the paint from the track, adding track mandated equipment that may take away from the looks or comfort and having a car that doesn’t have a class to race in against other like cars.

 

[Nuked]

If it were me I would do a LS instead. Stock 5.3 is going to be good running and around the HP level you want. Then more power is only a cam, heads and intake away.

 

[ice445]

If it were me I would do a LS instead. Stock 5.3 is going to be good running and around the HP level you want. Then more power is only a cam, heads and intake away.

Lol what. Blasphemy in a Cobra.

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