Still Awesome
It’s been a while since the Ford Mustang GTD first made headlines, but the specs are still as impressive as ever. With everything that’s been done to it, the GTD is more road-legal race car than hotted-up Mustang. Those extensive and comprehensive changes to the chassis include a bespoke arrangement with pushrod suspension at the back, adaptive spool-valve dampers, a wider track, and more.
Of course, those changes will be for nothing if it didn’t move fast. So, at the heart of the GTD is a supercharged 5.2-liter V8 engine tuned specifically for this model. The result is a hearty 815 hp and 664 lb-ft of torque, which is more than enough to put a good number of supercars on their toes.
Ford
Laying Down That Power
With those fat 345-section tires at the back, it has more than enough contact patch to lay down that power on the road unless you’re deliberately lighting the tires. 815 hp is a serious amount of power by any means, but is Ford truthful in its ratings, or is it actually sandbagging the actual output?
The folks from Late Model Restoration took a GTD, strapped it to a dyno, and let the numbers speak for themselves. The results were predictably impressive, but did it, at the very least, match the advertised figure? Read on.
The Magic Number is…
Before we tell you, note that the Mustang GTD in question was a freshly broken-in example with 1,100 miles on the clock. The car underwent a short shakedown before it was strapped into the dyno. The first pass saw a result of 740 hp and 605 lb-ft in its first pass. However, the second pass resulted in 753 hp and 609 lb-ft of torque.
On paper, it’s far away from the 815 hp listed by Ford, but do note that the dyno measures power at the wheels, not at the crank. So, what’s 740 hp in terms of crank horsepower? Give or take, drivetrain losses for rear-wheel-drive automatics are about 15%. Factoring that in, that’s about 870 hp. 753 hp to the wheels comes out at around 885 hp at the crank, 70 hp more than Ford’s claim.
With those numbers, one can say that Ford was conservative in its ratings. Still, we’re not complaining. Bonus horsepower is always a good thing, and if you have over $300,000 to spare, you can still get your hands on one as Ford has opened up another allocation for this special steed.
