Fordnatics List Archive

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Mail From: (email redacted)

Fellow Fordnatics,

The April 95 issue of Car and Driver has an article on "Hot Rod Mustangs."
On pages 48/49, comparitive stats are provided between three 1995 cars...all
coupes: a Mustang GT SVO GT40 (290HP), Mustang Cobra R (300HP, with the 351
engine) and a Z28 (275HP).

I've working my way up to a question, but first I'll summarize the key stats.
For simplicity, I'll focus on the SVO GT40 and Z28 only. (No offense to the
Cobra-R, but I don't expect to see too many on the open highway.) Here's the
stats....I hope my spacing works...can't figure out any other way to do it.

Car ---1/4----5to60---30to50---50to70--0to130--gears---weight
SVO---14.2s---5.4s------8.5s-----8.7s----29.8s---3.55to1--3315lbs
Z28---14.1s---5.6s-----11.7s----12.6s----28.5s---3.42to1--3460lbs

So, Camaro beats Mustang by a carlength in the 1/4 mile, and by over a second
in a standing start race to 130mph. Yet, from any type of a moving start,
Mustang beats Camaro rather handily.

There are a number of factors to explain this. Traction is the first one
that comes to mind re standing starts, as the Z28's torque arm is more
efficient that our 4-link, plus the LT1 puts out lots of torque early in the
power band and stays pretty flat thereafter. OTOH, the GT-40 heads really
scream at the higher rpms, and it runs strong all the way up to the mid 5s.
But, there's no doubt alternative ways to interpret all this data.

QUESTION: does anyone really know or have a definitive opinion as to why the
Mustang outperforms the Camaro with any type of a rolling start? Is this
advantage constant all the way up to top speed or does it taper off after
some point?

One reason for my curiosity stems from a weekend road encounter with a Z28
convertible as I was on a day trip to the Shore. I was driving my 94 Steeda
Convertible (i.e., GT-40 iron heads with variety of other mods that push it
up to approx 300HP) when the Z28 came on the freeway. In a
simultaneous reaction, we got on it starting from right at 65mph. The road
was clear with just the two of us on it.

I was running with my top down, which is a rather poor tactical situation to
be in as it *greatly* increases the drag at higher speeds. (but what the
hell, Sunday was a gorgeous day). My wife was with me, happy as ever to be
participating in real-time motorsports, a condition I easily recognized by
her shouts and white knuckles. The Z had 2 guys in it. I pulled away
steadily and it was over pretty quickly as
110 mph came up and I backed off as we were approaching traffic ahead. Had
my convertible top been up, I would have taken him by an even bigger margin.


I have always liked the feel of my car when I drop it into 3rd on the highway
and quickly ramp up to WOT, and have been curious about how it compares to
the F-bodies and rice burners. In general, I've done pretty good so far on
the open highway against the GM products (all except for one big block
Corvette that is.) Then, when I returned home later in the day, I noticed the
C&D article which furthered my curiousity...are Mustangs that much better
than Z28s on the *open road*, or not? If so, by how much?

Hence, this post. In addition to answering my question, what types of open
road encounters have other Mustangers or Ford Folk had with the General??
I'm sure others would like to hear about that as well.

Mike in VA

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Mail From: John Bolton <(email redacted)>

> Car ---1/4----5to60---30to50---50to70--0to130--gears---weight
> SVO---14.2s---5.4s------8.5s-----8.7s----29.8s---3.55to1--3315lbs
> Z28---14.1s---5.6s-----11.7s----12.6s----28.5s---3.42to1--3460lbs

The 30-to-50 and 50-to-70 runs are in top gear only, and the Z28, with
a 0.50:1 6th gear, is at a severe disadvantage to the 5-speed Mustang
and its 0.68(?):1 5th gear. Anyway, sub-100-mph top gear acceleration
times are meaningless in my opinion. What's really humorous is when
C&D compares times for a manual tranny car to times for an automatic
car (an automatic Escort will surely beat the Z28's above 30-to-50 and
50-to-70 times).

- --
John Bolton GTE Government Systems Corp
(email redacted) Research Triangle Park, NC
'93 LX 5.0

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: James A Larosa <(email redacted)>


> The 30-to-50 and 50-to-70 runs are in top gear only, and the Z28, with
> a 0.50:1 6th gear, is at a severe disadvantage to the 5-speed Mustang
> and its 0.68(?):1 5th gear. Anyway, sub-100-mph top gear acceleration
> times are meaningless in my opinion. What's really humorous is when
> C&D compares times for a manual tranny car to times for an automatic
> car (an automatic Escort will surely beat the Z28's above 30-to-50 and
> 50-to-70 times).

Besides, how many of us just throw it into top gear and romp on it?

James