On this episode of AmericanMuscle's Hot Lap, we hang out with AM customer Mike Zwick and
his 2012 GT, and talk about breaking the all motor record.
The record is in the 10.70's. I'm currently running in the 10.90's.
Later we'll show you guys what I've been up to with my 2014 GT build. Of course, we have
some awesome new products to talk about and a few very cool giveaways. Stick around for
AmericanMuscle's Hot Lap.
Hey, guys, Justin here and welcome to AmericanMuscle.com's Hot Lap, the place to find out what's hot
in the Mustang world, some happenings here at AmericanMuscle, some cool project car builds
along the way and some new products that you guys might be interested in for your own ride.
You're probably wondering why am I standing in the middle of a track. Well, over the last
five years our AmericanMuscle Mustang Show has just exploded into something crazy and
something that we could have never imagined. We've basically outgrown our previous location,
so that what leads me here to Maple Grove Raceway, the spot of our sixth annual AmericanMuscle
Mustang Show taking place August 16th. And it's sure to be our best one yet, guys. You
do not want to miss this one.
Making a repeat appearance again this year at our show, our boy Vaughn Gittin, Jr. will
be there along with his RTR rig, along with a few of his cars and something very special
that he's only going to reveal at our show.
Now, every year our show benefits a different charity and this year is no different. A portion
of the proceeds are going to be benefitting the Special Olympics Foundation, which we're
very happy about.
This year, guys, I'm really happy to say I'm not doing this alone. I have a familiar face
hanging out with me all day long. You guys know him. Brett "Big Schwag" Wagner, Pass
Time, Monster Garage, Sons of Anarchy, this guy's done it all. Dude, thanks so much for
helping us out this year.
Hey, man, you said, "Hey, Schwag, it's getting so big in the sixth year that we needed a
little beef to bring down to help out."
We could not be happier to have you helping us out.
One of the things I'm really excited about is we're going to have a burn out contest.
Who doesn't love a good burn out contest?
You said the "B" word. I think the biggest thing of the show, Brett, this thing behind
us. Can you believe we're actually giving the MMD car away, man?
Almost 700 horse. Tell me about the car.
Unbelievable, man. Air lift performance kit, Vortech blower on it, like Schwag said, about
700 wheel horsepower. I can't believe we're giving this thing away. You said you're going
to enter for the little lady?
I'm going to have to. Since I can't win it I'm going to have the little fiancée go for
it. All right, folks, it's going down August 16th. I'd better see you here or else.
That's right, man. Right here at the beautiful Maple Grove Raceway. Schwag, thank you so
much. Come meet this guy, come check out all the crazy Mustangs. Just click the link below
if you want to join to us.
Speaking of crazy Mustangs, we recently caught up with the owner of a 2012 GT who is chasing
down the all motor record. Let's check it out.
Alright, so we're out here in AM customer Mike Zwick's 2012 automatic Kona Blue GT.
Now, Mike's actually on the chase to beat the unopened motor automatic all motor record,
correct, sir?
Correct. Stock cams, unopened block.
Unopened block. So right now the car's running about in the 10.90's, where the record is
probably 10.75, 10.74, right around there?
Correct.
So you're a couple of tenths away. But why don't you tell the guys at home how you got
to where you are now?
Like I said, unopened motor, stock cams, stock oil pump gear. The car's got right around
30,000 miles. It was a daily driver for the first year and a half of ownership. Now it's
only on the weekends. Got a Cobra Jet manifold and monoblade throttle body, five-inch cold
air intake. We did a set of JBA long tube headers with their H-pipes and we put a Ford
pulse wheel on the motor to make the car spin up higher.
So that's the pulse ring, right, correct? Because otherwise the automatic, they have
a hard code written into the software, right? The car will just not rev any higher than,
what, 7,500 or something?
Yeah. Right now I'm on E85 gas while we're cruising around here. From the dyno, the car
did 460 horsepower, about 399 pound-feet of torque. We just couldn't get it past a certain
RPM but once we put that wheel on we were able to go up to about 7,900 RPM.
That's where you want to be with those Cobra Jets. You're at 1090 roughly, you need to
get that down a couple of tenths. What are some of your plans of action to get it down?
Well, right now the car's about 3,400 pounds. We did some lightening up. As you can see
inside the interior we did rear door delete. We got race seats in the car, aluminum drive
shaft, removed the front sway bar with that BMR kit and put some weld racing wheels on
the car.
So you want to get the car down to about 3,500 pounds with you in it, correct?
Right. So I'm going to have to drop about maybe 200 pounds out of the car. Right now
the car has got stock K-member on the car and stock suspension and shocks and struts
so we're going to do some aftermarket struts and shocks and we're going to do a tubular
K-arm member.
Okay, now tell the guys at home, because you actually told me, you have some awesome mods
coming up here on the menu, the first of which is a very cool water pump that's not exactly
cheap.
Yeah, we're going to do a water pump on the car. It's a bolt on part on the exterior of
the motor. It won't go into the motor. So we're hoping to get maybe about 10 rear wheel
horsepower out of that electric water pump.
Now, with all the mods you have planned, Mike, motor mods, weight reduction stuff, what are
your goals for the car as far as ET?
Like I said, we're trying to get that 1070 ET record and then once I do that, or get
real close to that, we're going to go inside the motor. We're going to put some cams in
it and do some head work.
Well, that should be exciting. Now guys, we are definitely going to follow Mike down to
the track. When he decides to go for that record, you're going to want to see it, so
subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. Click the link below if you're
watching this on YouTube. If you're catching us on Facebook, head over to our YouTube channel
and subscribe while you're there.
Now, I actually saw Mike recently at a Dyno Day local to us and he took me for a little
blast in the car. He actually surprised me. He had a trans brake on this thing. I didn't
know you had one on it. Launch it off me, put me back in the seat. I felt this thing
launch but why don't we show these guys at home how this this does on the street? You
ready?
Alright. Let's see if we can hook it.
Alright.
That looked like fun, man! Mike, thanks so much for bringing the car out today, brother.
We really appreciate it. She sure is clean and she sure does rip, man.
Thanks, man.
Well, guys, again, we're going to head down to MIR and watch Mike go for that record,
so if you want to keep track of this you have to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click
the link below if you are watching this on YouTube. And if you're catching this on our
Facebook channel, then head over to our YouTube channel, AmericanMuscle videos, and be sure
to subscribe while you're there.
Mike, thanks again, dude.
No problem.
Hey, guys, so kicking off the new products that are available this month in August, we
have the C&L line of cold air intakes and accessories. These products fit a wide range
of Mustangs, anything from a Fox body, all the way on up to the newer gen S197s.
Everyone knows the C&L name. It's been around for a long time. You know you're getting a
good product that'll give you good solid gains either with or without the BAMA custom tune.
If you guys remember, Justin actually put one on his 2014 GT in stage one of his project
build.
Alright, so of course pairing your C&L cold air intake with a BAMA custom tune will only
give you greater gains. We saw this already with our automatic 2011 GT where we threw
on an 1114 C&L cold air intake. We had BAMA come out, custom tune the car real quick and
we picked up over 50 horsepower and 50 foot-pounds of torque throughout the curve.
We know you guys love contests and this month, in August, we'll be giving away a C&L cold
air intake and a BAMA X4 tuner with a custom tune to one of our YouTube subscribers. If
you're not a subscriber, make sure you do so by clicking the link below. If you are
already, don't worry about it, you're automatically entered to win. So make sure you guys sign
up today to enter for your chance to win and get some more power out of your ride.
I had mentioned earlier that Justin had installed a C&L on his 2014 in stage one of his build.
Now Justin's actually used two different C&L products and you're going to have to watch
further to see what I'm talking about.
Hey, guys. Justin here. As you can see, I have my '14 back in the shop. We're doing
a little bit more work on it today. Definitely diving into the engine bay a little bit. Really
excited to show you about all this stuff here. We're going to do a little bit of appearance
stuff so I'll kind of show you where that GT 500 theme's tying in too.
Now, you always hear me tell you and guess what I'm going to tell you one more time?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't done so already. You can see progress I'm
making with my own car, in addition, some of our own project cars here at the shop and
some other fun vids. So let's check this out.
Alright, guys, some of you may have recognized this bad boy. That's right, I'm going with
a Cobra Jet intake manifold. A lot of you guys have been asking to see it on our YouTube
page and I've been dying to do it. So here it is, man. We're going to throw this thing
on my '14, see how it does.
Now, if you don't know about this, it's basically you can expect a lot of top-end gains without
any of the torque loss you'd see with a BOSS manifold. It's kind of a rare thing right
now, not a whole lot of people are doing it for a couple of different reasons, but you
can't deny the gains. Hopefully this thing delivers.
In conjunction with that, I'm throwing on the Super Cobra Jet mono-blade throttle body,
really let this thing breathe. It should be a pretty awesome setup when we're all said
and done. Currently I'm about 375-ish with just an intake, nothing too crazy. I'm hoping
for around 420+ horsepower considering I'm still on stock manifold, stock headers, so
we are going to throw an off-road H-pipe on this and see how it does.
Now, we're going to finish up here under the hood, then we're going to tackle the intake
because we have to get a little custom there.
Alright, guys, like I told you earlier, we had to get a little custom with the cold air
intake because as of now no major companies have released a cold air for this setup. There's
a couple smaller shops that are hand-making the intakes but, honestly, I just wanted to
throw this thing on and get it going.
Basically, here's what we did. We grabbed a 2010 C&L cold air intake for the three-valve
cars because they still have that oval shaped throttle body going on. We made some small
modifications and here it is. It works. It looks pretty good on there. Now we just have
to see how this thing is going to perform.
We are going to get underneath the car. Ryan and I are going to throw on the off-road H-pipe
from Pypes.
To see what else I did with my car in this video and what those dyno numbers are, just
simply click on that link below to check out the rest of the video over on our YouTube
channel.
Well, after months of speculation and months of waiting, those 2015 horsepower numbers
are finally in, guys, so let's talk about them a little bit. Starting with the 2.3 liter
Eco Boost, this little thing is putting out 310 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque.
Sounds like a whole lot of fun. We'll have forged connecting rods, forged pistons and
that twin scroll turbo, so needless to say, given a little help, a little massaging, this
little motor can probably put down a lot more power reliably. So we cannot wait to get our
hands on one of these.
V6 actually lost a little power this year, going from 305 down to 300, while the torque
remained the same at 280 pound-feet of torque. Ford actually attributes this to the newly
redesigned intake manifold that they had to do for the newly redesigned hood, the lower
hood line of the S550. But nevertheless, I think the 3.7's actually going to be starting
to phase out a little bit. I think they're going to start moving towards that Eco Boost
platform that they've adopted lately, and I think it will actually take the place of
the 3.7 down the road. But that's just me. We'll have to wait and see on that.
Last but not least, the Coyote motor, newly redesigned for this year and the numbers are
in: 435 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque. Now, that's 15 more horsepower than last year
and 10 more pound-feet of torque. Guys, I know you might not be totally thrilled about
this. I know I was hoping for a little bit more personally, but regardless, it's more
so that's good.
There also is some very cool new things going on inside the motor. Obviously new heads completely,
new cam shafts, including more lift than the previous BOSS 302 cams, and stiffer valve
springs. So even though Dave Pericak himself told me that this motor would not rev any
higher from the factory . ..
It's not going to rev any higher as far as the red line goes, but you are going to get
more horsepower out of it and more torque.
One can only imagine that given a tune, this thing should have no problem revving higher
and do so all day long.
We also are seeing the Road Runner forged connecting rods from the previous BOSS motor,
but unfortunately, it does not get the BOSS forged pistons, which isn't the end of the
world, and some other cool little things as well.
One thing I'm not terribly happy about is this new integrated mani-cat Ford thing is
calling it. Which basically means, they've integrated a catalytic converter into the
actual long tube header or the manifold part. Gone are the days of just throwing on an off-road
X-pipe or H-pipe like you could with the '11 to '14 GTs. Now you actually have to get rid
of those factory manifolds, put on an aftermarket set of long tubes to get rid of those cats.
I know this might affect some people out there. Obviously a lot of people like going with
those off-road setups, myself included, so it just takes a little bit more work here
with the 2015.
But nevertheless, we do want to hear what you guys are thinking about all these changes,
the horsepower numbers and, again, some of the changes to the Coyote motor.
Alright Mustang fans, I'm sure by now you've heard the news of Dodge's new Hellcat dethroning
our beloved '13 and '14 Shelby GT 500 as the highest production horsepower V8 in the world,
coming in at a very impressive 707 horsepower. Well, not so fast, fat cat. Apparently Ford
has something very big up its sleeve. How big you ask? Well, how about 750 horsepower
big? Yeah, I know.
I know it might be a little silly to talk about this mythical SVT Mustang as of now,
as it's just a rumor, but come on, guys, that's what we do here. We want to know what you
think about this thing. Drop us a comment wherever you're watching this and let us know.
Recently we also caught some photos and videos of the 2016 GT 350R ripping around the Nurburgring
in Germany. Wow, guys, if you haven't seen this yet, you definitely have to check it
out. Just click the link below. It's way more aggressive than the 2015 GT in my opinion
in regards to the front end, has some big gnarly carbon-ceramic brakes on it and a crazy
exhaust node. So again, guys, just click on the link below to head back to our blog if
you haven't seen this already. You will not be disappointed.
Okay, guys, so adding to the list of new products that we have here at AmericanMuscle.com this
month is this SR Performance short throw shifter. Now, some of the highlights of this shifter
include the aluminum C&C machined quality construction. You can reuse your stock shift
nozzle to shift if you'd like. This offers a 40 percent reduction in the throw, which
is pretty cool. You can bang some gears with that.
One of the other coolest features of the shifter is you can adjust the height of it. Now this
is an option that not all aftermarket short throw shifters offer for three-valve Mustangs.
This isn't going to break the bank either.
So you guys all know, last month we told you about HRA wheels being added to AmericanMuscle.com's
website. This month I'm super excited to announce that AmericanMuscle.com is expanding their
premium wheel selection even further with Vossen wheels. We're going to be offering
Vossen wheels in a bunch of different styles and a bunch of different finishes.
Right here in front of me, I have a CV3 wheel in a machined matte silver finish. The CV3
wheels are also on the 2014 behind me in a machined matte black finish. Right here in
front of me I have a CV5 wheel in a matte graphite finish. And finally, down here, we
have a CV7 wheel in a silver polish finish.
Now you're definitely getting what you pay for with these wheels. You get great quality
wheels in a very unique style that you don't see in many other Mustang wheels. These are
definitely baller status wheels. So if you want to check out these wheels, the SR Performance
shifter and the other new products in this month's video, click the link below.
This is a great squat, good flow of motion. I do my squats, do my burpees. Oh, look at
that! I'm done. Sorry.
Alright, guys, before we get out of here, of course I do want to announce the winner
from last month's video where we did ask you guys to get the closest to one of our 2015's
that we have on order in regard to color and trim level. The winner for that contest is
YouTube user Steve O'Donnell, who guessed our 2015 competition orange GT. Congrats,
man, and enjoy the $100 gift card here on the site.
Now, we are also giving away more parts. I know you guys love that Steph has already
thrown in a C&L and a tuner combo for you guys. Well, I'm about to give away a full
Cook's long tube setup along with a mid pipe to one owner of a '96 to '14 Mustang. All
you have to do is simply click on that link below and good luck.
Alright, guys, that is officially going to wrap us up for this month's episode of AmericanMuscle's
Hot Lap. We really hope you enjoy where we're going with this new format. Of course if there's
something that we're not doing that you'd like to see, just drop us a comment wherever
you're watching this and we'll definitely try to get it done, whether it's more car
profiles, part installs, product comparisons, the sky's the limit.
Again, guys, thanks for watching. I'm out of here. You know what to do: for all things
Mustang, keep it right here at AmericanMuscle.com