(gentle instrumental music) - The Shelby GT500 Get yourself ready body and mind to learn all the technical intricacies of this car. We spoke with the engineers
and we're gonna detail what turns this car from
run of the mill Mustang into something more exotic. So if you have a tofu turkey,
pull it out of the oven. If you have gyro meat,
rub it all over yourself because the next 30 minutes
is gonna be intense. (gentle instrumental music) (car engine roaring) (gentle instrumental music) - As someone who owned an
S550 GT for several years I can tell you that the
current generation Mustang is surprisingly practical. Your backseats are usable for children or for adults you don't like. The seats themselves fold down which leads to the trunk
space which is also, again, surprisingly large. You could use this as a daily driver. The front seats themselves
are very, very comfortable. These were Recaros, which
are one of the seat options are specifically found in
the GT350 and the GT500. They are leather lined
with alcantara inserts. You also have a specific
GT500 steering wheel which looks like the GT350 wheel but they've added paddle shifters (objects clinking)
which are just incredible. So with that, let's talk about
the interior electronics. Most of the interior electronics
in this car are lifted from regular Mustangs. So you have Ford Sync which
still works very very well, it has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The Bang and Olufsen audio
system attached to it is average but again, in a GT500, who cares? You're gonna be listening to
the exhaust system hopefully. The control structure in
this car is very logical, well laid out, the touch points are great. The digital dash, which
is unique to the GT500 sand the regular Ford Mustang
GTS is still configurable, there's some great information, you have all the stuff
you could possibly need. Your inlet air temp, your oil pressure, your oil temperature, your boost, all of that is easy to read, easy to find. Really with all of that
said let's head to the shop. (upbeat instrumental music) - We are in the shop at
Xtreme Xperience in Chicago, our Homeland and this is
their entire facility, they work on cars here as
a part of their business but today it's all about the GT500 which has been a collaboration
with us and Ford. We had the press car and now
one of their own machines, so let's get into all the
technical information. - [Jack] So the GT500 Mark
and I normally don't say this, what the Ford Performance Engineers who are separate from the
Ford Mustang Engineers have accomplished with this
car is genuinely incredible. - As you get more and more into the high-performance rumble
vehicles and into EVs, you might be able to wow somebody with spec sheets and the
hype, but a lot of times what happens is you engineer out the driver experience and fun
and we talk about this a lot. - A good example's the C8.
- Yes. - The C8 is incredibly fast and from an engineering perspective, the platform the C8 does
on is way more impressive than the S550 Mustang
but that car lacks heart, it lacks soul, it lacks fun,
it feels like an appliance right now, today.
- At least right now, today. So, we're gonna get into all
the things that they've done because a lot of this is
carry over from the GT350R which we covered and what
their goal was to evolve, is to take what they
learned from the GT350R, evolve it, make it more
reliable and faster. (laughing) - Yeah, this car is a monster which you'll see when we
take it out on the street, but what they've
accomplished here as we said, they took the lessons
from both the 350R program and the race program with
all the development drivers, like Billy Johnson and brought it into the suspension tuning. So a lot of this looks similar, right, there's not a lot of aluminum. However, they did change the
front suspension geometry. - Yes and they changed the spindle or the knuckle design and the control arm and there's a couple of reasons for this. One is to reduce tram#lining,
you have enormous tires and the development goal
was to make this car one more approachable, a little bit softer and easier to drive,
more accessible to drive. So every single corner of this car from the transmission
programming, to the engine tuning, to the suspension tuning, to
the way that the steering feels all of that is about
giving you the confidence to get out on track and not
make it one of these like, oh my God I'm gonna shit my pants, because I'm gonna stuff it. So, when you have a car
with this much horsepower and we know the stereotypes
with Mustang drivers or Mustangs always
crashing into the crowds, they did not want this to follow that same feeling when you drive it. So, let's get into the front half. This is vastly different than the GT350R, because you're adding way more horsepower, you need far more cooling
so what they've added is five heat exchangers,
two high temp radiators one low temp radiator
for the supercharger, you have a transmission cooler and you have an engine oil cooler and there's gaping more of surface area which includes ventilation flaps on the inner part behind the radiator core and that is so you don't
have a bunch of needless air blowing around creating
more drag, inefficiency. - So, the front end of this Mark, because of all those
coolers takes 50% more air and has a 50% larger
opening than what you found in the GT350 and GT350R respectively and because of that, they've had to change the arrow in the front, allegedly through these
basically side Gurney flaps, everything they've done in the front including the enormous
hood vents have eliminated all the lift found from
adding extra air flow. - And they had to do plenty of research with their testimonials on arrow which we have some video footage here you can see of all the
revisions and how they tried to change and reshape this car for airflow and you can remove some of these pieces to reduce drag as well for street driving and then add them back
when you're on the track. - Or respectively when
you're on the drag strip when you need extra airflow and when drag isn't as important.
- Correct. And that also includes the hood vent or the cover for the hood
vent that you can remove to expel more heat when
you're track driving this. The next thing is, depending
on how you spec this out, the suspension is more adjustable. They borrow the GT350R camber plates or a GT three GT500 specific camber plate. Now, I'm gonna show you
what that looks like here and how you can kinda push
in the strut in and outward to create more negative camber which gives you more alignment capability. With a car like this,
if you're tracking it, you're gonna need, well this
is going to get you to about two or three negative degrees
of camber on the front which is very helpful
and for guys like this who have this out on
the track all the time, you would annihilate tires if you didn't have that capability. - Speaking of wheels and tires Mark, you have two options with this car. If you go with the carbon
fiber track package you get carbon wheels
from Carbon Revolution. They are horrifically expensive
but what they do offer is a more rigid wheel. What people don't understand is even steel alloyed wheels flex. What the carbon fiber allows is no flex, basically your camber is constant. When you have a wheel that flexes, it can dramatically add
more camber to your tire. - And again, it's all about controlling.
- Predictability. - Predictability, how much
variation do you have, compliance steer, all
the things that go into engineering suspension is where Ford put a ton of
development, time and money on the 350 and the 500. The last thing that they've
modified and changed from the original GT350R and
this is just years of learning and the evolving nature of electronics is the MagneRide dampers. The programming, the logic
they're faster to respond and they're a pain in the ass to tune. Initially, it takes all
this buildup and development to get them to where they need to be and then making subtle changes is easier after you have it figured out and that's kinda where they're at. - The ride quality in
this car as a street car is very impressive given its capability and the size of wheels and
tires it has and on the track, it's very compliant, unlike
a 'Vet or even the ZL1 1LE. - They've struck the balance
here of giving you both and that's why MagnaRide is
good, is that it does give you the flexibility there. Now transmission, they have made some serious revisions here compared to the 350 and 350R, there's no manual transmission anymore. - [Jack] Sadly. The Tremec unit in the GT350 is amazing, however, they do give you a
Tremec dual clutch in this car. It's a similar architecture
to the dual clutch you find in the C8. However, this has seven speeds. - Okay. And it has more torque holding capacity than the C8?
- It does. - [Mark] Okay. We talked
about accessibility. When you drive this flat
out, I was expecting BMW or like traditional old
school Ferrari shift quality, where it's (hands thumping)
hard, hard, hard, hard. When you get to the higher RPM, it feels almost torque converted. The engagement of each gear is so smooth and we're going to talk about that more on the street and the track and partly why they have it tuned that way. - 'Cause it doesn't upset the car. So when you drive a manual car and you're going flat out in a corner and the suspension's loaded
up, if you go from say third to fourth suddenly.
you'll upset the rear suspension because the shifts are basically imperceptibly fast and
smooth, the car doesn't care. It does whatever you want it to do and it doesn't freak out
the suspension balance. - Yeah, you're not throwing
off the balance of the car from shift shock or G-shock
so that was one of the huge, again, parts of trying to
integrate everything together. The last thing to talk about on the front is the brake system and they are enormous. (laughing) - [Jack] The size of dustbin lids. And they have far more thermal
capacity than the GT350 because this is a heavier car. - [Mark] Yes. And this was by design. They are still a two piece,
but they are non-removable. You can't take the hat off the ring so they're one piece but
still two piece designed. They have removed cross drilling or slots and I talked a little bit about this on the Civic Type R breaking
system, they did the same thing and in the long exhaustive
break videos I did. When you have a huge break disc
like this with a solid face, you have more surface area
for the pad to grip onto. You have far less heat chugging
cracks from thermal cycling and that's something that is very difficult to deal with
on cross drilled rotors, all the cracks form at all the tiny holes. - Because they are a structural weakness. When you put a bunch of
holes into a solid object, they became a weak point and
the fact that these brakes are constantly expanding and
contracting with the heat, sooner or later they're
gonna be failure points. - Yes. And this reduces and Ford's testing, it reduces failure rates, they last longer and that's the big thing away. More thermal capacity, they last longer, you're not gonna be having
to replace them as much and you don't wanna be doing it on a car this heavy in bank.
- When you have a consistent pedal.
- Correct. It's a more consistent brake pedal feel. But enough of that,
let's head to the back. - [Jack] All right. - In the back of the GT500, it looks like pretty
much every other Mustang. It looks almost identical to
the 350R that we looked at. You have a diffuser plate, you have aluminum rear control arms and surprisingly to me
even after all these years, the underbody is not all that covered up even compared to like some of
the economy cars we look at, they don't even have the
control arms covered, the underbelly is not so. - [Jack] It's the compromise of working on a largely rental car platform, the S550 is not the
most advanced platform. However, there are some
changes back here Mark. The geometry is wider than the rear, largely due to the specific Pilot 4S tires or the Pilot Sport Cup 2s that
come on the track package. You also have a different
Torsen route differential, it's still a 373 and still a Torsen unit. However, the locking
ratio has been changed to aid in more predictable corner exit. - [Mark] Compared to the 350R. - [Jack] Yes. - And the one good thing about a Torsen and people were like, "Oh, it's kinda old, "why would you want that?" It's predictable. It's always gonna feel the same assuming you don't lift a wheel, but compared to some of the
newer rear differentials that are electronically controlled, that load gets steering angle. - eLSD specifically comes to mind like in the ZL1 1LE, in the C7, it's always doing something different If you change your drive
mode, your steering position, any of that, it's gonna give
you a different reaction. - So this has a very solid mechanical feel because it's all mechanical. Speaking of the rear differential you also have to keep that cool. And you can see the bungs on the rear diff and there is a cooler that is sitting underneath the diffuser
plate, much like you saw in the GT350R and that is
monitored electronically. So every mechanical system
that they needed to worry about is monitored and cooled properly, which also adds one additional
area of concern for an owner if you're tracking this a lot. All these cooling lines
need to be monitored and again, it's part of
having a high performance car, or a high performance machine,
it's one of those variables. Now, I think Jack, we've said pretty much everything we need to,
besides the aerodynamics. There are multiple different wing options and you can go all the way up
to the full-blown Track Pack with the carbon fiber wing and
it makes a ton of down force. - [Jack] I think between
three and 400 pounds, which is considerable and they do balance it
out with the front end, there are some small
changes made up there. - So yeah, it's a balanced aero package on the exterior part of the car, just wasn't slapped on like
a body kit from AutoZone#. (laughing) But, let's get to the
under hood part of this. Take a look at the engine baby, 'cause there's plenty to talk about there before you fall asleep.
- All right. - Jack, we are under the hood. This is another engine
dubbed "The Predator." We just looked at what "The Terminator?" - Yup.
- Geez, somebody's got some serious problems with eighties action movies. - Oh, Arnold's the best. - So, why is this different than "The Voodoo" that we
looked at in the GT350R?. - So both these cars share
the identical 5.2 liter block. However, this is a cross plane crank motor versus the "Voodoo"s, which
is a flat plane crank. They did that for really
one reason, durability. I love the GT350, I love the 5.2 but historically, there have been some. - Issues with it and some
of that has been addressed for the 2020 model year
with new ring packs and that's gonna help with oil consumption and a whole host of other
things, but the big problem. - [Jack] The fundamental
problem is the motors vibrate themselves to death. - [Mark] Yes. So you can't have that on a motor that's going to produce significantly more horsepower and torque.
- And has a 2.65 liter your Eaton reverse screw
style blower on top of it and now it makes 760 horsepower with 625 foot pounds of torque. This thing is (laughing). - [Mark] It's really powerful and it's not even the
numbers that are impressive. - [Jack] You could run
in an 115 degree heat, according to the engineers,
because of the cooling it makes all the power all the time. - It feels very consistent
for what it is, but then again we joke around like
how you feel power loss on a four cylinder more because there's not a lot
of power to work with, this engine makes so much
horsepower that even if you lose 10 or 20 horsepower from heat soak, it's not that noticeable
at least on the street. Now, I know I'm sure,
probably plenty of people are gonna argue that, but
the main Joe blow consumer is there's so much power here, this is just the spec
sheet thing really overall. Let's get into some of
the other technical parts. You have a carbon composite or carbon core and the radiator support bracket. They've added carbon fiber, it's a carbon fiber drive shaft as well which helps to reduce rotating mass. You have the rain guard here
for a normal daily driving. - [Jack] Which you can
remove for extra cooling. - [Mark] Correct. And if you're on the
track, you wanna do that. They have a closed air box element here on like "The Voodoo" motor
that was open to the hood here, you don't need that.
- And you have this composite non-carbon
but a very strong composite to clear the supercharger. - So tell me a little bit
more about the engine Jack, what else have they done? - So, they've reduce the compression ratio when compared to a regular 5.2 liter and they've strengthened the bottom end and a lot of the manufacturing
changes of the block have also been done to the GT350. The reason they've been able
to do this is they've taken all the lessons they've
learned from the GT350 program they've now had for five years
and their racing program. They have a crosspoint
crank, naturally aspirated, 5.2 liter V8. - Which is the Multimatic
designed race car, correct. So, they've taken a lot of
that and the main thing is they wanted this to be more durable at least from the engine
perspective and more reliable and one of the other things
this is port injected only. You don't get dual injection, you don't get direct
injection which is great for a lot of people that
don't wanna have to deal with the carbon but they've
also addressed one thing that is a major problem with
a high horsepower application like this or something that's
being driven like a madman and that is blow by. When you have all this pressure,
you have a lot of blow by from the PCV system that
goes back into the engine and you can create, wreak havoc on tuning
and all the other things. So, they've an oil air separator here, a built-in catch can. So, the PCV system is routed
into their oil air separator which took a lot of design on
Ford's part according to them to make sure, one, it worked properly and it wasn't gonna
require any maintenance and whatever goes back into the engine is just the oil and a
minimal amount of fuel. Now, I asked them about that,
what about fuel dilution or spent fuel that gets
blown back in and they said, it's such a minute amount that
it doesn't affect the tuning. Now, like anything, if you're putting kind of blown by oil which
could be contaminated, but based on their testing
wasn't a huge deal, if you're constantly
pushing this to the max you're gonna do celerated
oil changes anyway. - You're gonna have to. Speaking of oil, if you do
have a contaminated oil, you have a lot of oil to
work with to begin with. You have 11 quarts of
oil and it's all 5W-50 which means it shouldn't
break down right away. - Yes, it's gonna hold up
to higher temperatures, you're gonna have less
pressure loss from that and I just wish they had
that big of a capacity in the fuel for this thing.
(laughing) - So I (laughing), I've driven
a lot of cars doing this job and this is the worst range I've had in any car I've ever tested
on this channel with you. I had to fill this thing up
every 100 miles driving it. And yes, I will admit I did a lot of this
with the throttle pedal. - Yeah, but you're gonna expect that, but the tank is not big
in this car to begin with. - [Jack] It's the same size
tank I had in my S550 GT, it's a joke. - It needs to have like a 50 gallon tank. - You don't need a passenger seat, it just needs to be more fuel. - Yeah.
- But again, it's one of these things that you expect from a car like this and we
could go into so much more, like the updated hood latch system that doesn't require
pins, which is a big thing if you know a regular S550 Mark because they have a
problem with hood flutter. - [Mark] Yes. And this car might have some
fluttering in your pants as well when going flat out.
- When you're going 40 miles an hour.
- At least, you won't have to worry
about hood flutter. Let's get this on the road
and see how it drives Jack. - All right, looking forward to it. (upbeat instrumental music) (car engine roaring) - Oh boy. I know I'm in for a real ride today Jack. - Mark, you know what they say, show the people what they want. (car engine roaring) - Wow. Holy shit man, this thing is amazing. (laughing) Wow. You know what, stop this
video if you can afford it and just go buy one 'cause.
(car engine roaring) Wow dude.
(laughing) I felt the adrenaline surge
from that, I'm not kidding, I'm not even joking. - This thing's amazing.
- Holy shit, it's way different in the passenger seat but there's a fear factor to this thing. What they've accomplished with the GT500, what the engineers have
done with this thing, I never say this about cars. - It's incredible. - Well, this is so stupid because we know the Mustang as a whole has to
be so many different things. - [Jack] Oh, it's deeply compromised. - I thought they reached what
the maximum they could do with the 350, the GT350 was like, okay that's all this car needs
and then you get in here, it's so fast for what this is. And I mean, I know there's
faster cars don't get me wrong, I'm not tryna over paint this as like oh the fastest car on
the planet, but it is. You know, you look at
the Hellcats the Red Eyes and the Demons and this is
like, it's that same feel but it's even more, there's more pull, there's like this higher
revving nature to it. - The "Predator" power plant is basically the spiritual successor
to the Terminator Cobra. - Yeah, times two.
- Times three. It is so fast but past the
speed which is addicting, as a streetcar and as
anyone probably knows by now we're gonna take this thing to the track. - You're gonna kill yourself
in this car on the street. If you wanna have even
like 30% of the fun. - Oh, Ford should give
you a mandatory court date when they sell you this
automobile but as a street car, if you're better behaved
than me which you know, I shouldn't own this car (laughing). - Oh no, no, most people are not gonna
be able to afford this. So like for a street
perspective before we got out on the track.
- It rides well, it has great character and for most people who aren't buying a
car like this to track, which is unfortunately,
a majority of people who buy a GT500 or ZL1. This has more character than that car because it's the sense
of fun, ridiculousness, the drive train, the way the
trans works on the street, and yes, you miss out some
of the fun from the manual, I will admit, but there's
a sense of savagery that's comical, to be honest. - So let's go down the list,
the new C8 is the most refined, most comfortable, least
inspiring driving street car. Best street car but least fun. Then you have the ZL1, which is more fun, a little harsher especially the 1 LE, then you go to this
car, which is more fun, way more fun, faster, not good on the interior per
se, compared to like the 'vet, still decent riding better than the ZL1 and then you get to kind of. - The Hellcat, which is a comedy car. - It's just like, it's
a comedy club inside. You can't really take
that car super serious, even though it is insane, so
this finds a great balance on the street but I would say Jack, let's just get this out
on the (beep) track. - Before I kill you. - Yeah, before we get
getting serious trouble. (gentle instrumental music) Final thoughts on the
GT500 and you might notice the drive was cut short. That's because we planned
on taking this to the track to stretch its legs a bit. We've already had it on track,
so we kind of understand what the car is about
but it didn't pan out. Long story short, we're
gonna be doing a comparison with the GT500 and some other
high performance machines next year, because we live in Illinois and we're basically screwed
for six months of the year 'cause of weather. So, big thanks to Jeff Grauer at Ford, he's an engineer at Ford
that worked on the GT500. He filled in all the gaps in knowledge and how this car was designed and Berge who's one of our Ford rubs
who allowed us the opportunity to really do what we needed
to do to get this video done. So, the other side is
Xtreme Xperience in Chicago. We filmed there, we're gonna
take one of their GT500 out for our comparison next year and if you're in a region
that has good weather and you wanna drive one of their cars, you wanna pay to drive it on the track and experience it with an
instructor from Ferraris, Porsches you name it, go to their website and as a gift, use the code PREMIUMGEESE and you're gonna get a
discount, but guess what, we don't get anything from it. We're not good business people. But, if you wanna to try this
car out, definitely do that. So let's get into the pros and the cons. If you are low on testosterone and you want your head and
your genitalia to explode, go out and buy this car (laughing). It's crazy how amazing it is, it's probably one of my favorite
cars that I drove all year and it's partially because
I expected zilch from it. When I got out of the GT350, I thought, okay this is the maximum they can do and I kinda talked about it
in the drive and I thought, here we go, here's another edition, here's another special edition, they're just milking this car
for everything it's worth. But when you drive it and
once we talked to the engineer and he explained their internal directive when they designed the GT500
was make it (beep) fun. (laughing)
And that's it. That's exactly what it's about. While still having all the
proper setup and suspension, you can drive it on the street,
it doesn't drive like gas, it's compliant and that's
the biggest takeaway. You get it out on track,
there's enough body motion to feel what it's doing, it's not edgy. The transmission performance
is ultra fast but super smooth, there's nothing shocking or jarring. The power delivery is brutish as it is, it never overwhelms you
and makes you feel like it's out of control. It's a very approachable
super car, muscle car, pony car, whatever you wanna say and I'm so impressed with this machine that if you have the money
and you wanna just blow away all your male friends that are balding or having large prostates like me, this is the car to buy or at
least get out and drive it. Please get out and drive it
and let me know what you think. Thanks for watching,
I'll see you next time. (gentle instrumental music) (car engine roaring)
This thing has a whole Ecoboost Mustangs worth of power over my GT. There is no way I wouldn't kill myself in that car. The GT500 is peak S550.
Finally, someone will tell me something I don't know about this car. I could have guessed that a 700+ HP Mustang with a DCT and 5.2L S/C engine is fun as hell, but actually learning about the engineering behind it is so much more interesting.
You know it's going to be a serious review when /u/savagegeese is wearing his signature Patagonia™ jacket in the intro
From ~21:50 “Ford should give you a mandatory court date when they sell you this automobile” - fucking great.
I couldn't imagine riding around in a 700hp vehicle every day. I don't have the self-control to not floor it when there's a a chance, and within a few seconds you are breaking the law, and a few more seconds later you are looking at jail time.
I’m at work so I can’t watch this till later but the really are the best t reviews out there by far.
How does reducing tramlining with knuckle and control arm design work?
I just saw one of these get unloaded the other day. I’m not much of a mustang fan but damn that thing sounded so nice
I own the wrong Mustang. I really want one after watching how giddy it makes reviewers.
i’m surprised at how well this puts the power down considering it has RWD and 760hp