This week, Bill Tumas and the team at CJ Pony Parts posted a dyno graph that compared a first model year S550 with the newest 2018 Mustang GT that was recently delivered to Bill’s driveway.
The original 420 number I posted in the ’15 vs ’18 comparisons was hitting the speed limiter. — Bill Tumas, CJ Pony Parts
Both cars were equipped with the six-speed manual transmission with the Performance Package option and the only real upgrade that had been performed was an X-pipe resonator delete on Bill’s 2018 Pony. The results?
Not only was there an increase in peak horsepower and torque that the team at Ford has already released, but impressive gains over the 2015-2017 models were apparent at every point on the graph.
Bill’s resonator-delete 2018 Mustang GT was more than 34 horsepower and 36 lb-ft better than his 2015 Mustang GT in stock form.
As impressive as this stock dyno was, it’s important to point out that Bill’s 2018 Mustang GT did hit the speed limiter (150 mph at 6,800 rpm) during the pull. After spending some time checking out the dyno, we were obviously curious to find out what this dual-fuel Coyote engine would do with a simple tune.
We hit up Bill at CJ Pony Parts to find out what is next for his Race Red 2018 Mustang GT. And lucky for us, Bill’s Pony was back at Revolution Automotive getting its first initial tune.
“Today Adam Browne at Revolution Automotive is working on tuning my CJ Pony Parts 2018 Mustang GT,” Bill reported. “The original 420 number I posted in the ’15 vs ’18 comparisons was hitting the speed limiter.”
We wanted to make sure our results were not a fluke so we did back-to-back pulls. — Matt Alderman, ID Motorsports
“We found some similarities in the changes we made on the 2018 5.0-liter F-150 worked well on the Mustang too. Ford has definitely not left as much on the table with the latest Coyote engine,” Matt explained. “We wanted to make sure our results where not a fluke so we did back-to-back pulls and then went back to stock and re-baselined. Needless to say we have something consistent and strong for a tune only.”
Having two skilled tuners working on Bill’s car allowed them to quickly dial in some substantial gains, but we suspect these increases are just the beginning.
After a Rev Auto/ID Motorsports custom tuned delivered by an SCT BDX, Bill’s car picked up 18.69 horsepower and 12.71 lb-ft of torque at the wheels.
We are excited to see how this Gen 3 Coyote responds to intake and exhaust improvements from the aftermarket. — Adam Browne, Revolution Automotive
As luck would have it, the mods are still coming for Bill’s car, so Adam will soon see how the car responds to bolt-ons.
“(It delivered) awesome gains for a tune only for sure,” Bill said. “Jay at JLT Performance hooked me up with his new cold air kits for the 2018, so we should have numbers in the next day or so with that installed. We did base pulls with the limiter removed and it made 425/401 pulling to 7,400 rpm. Adam got busy with the tuning and it now makes 444/414 with just a tune only.”
Adam Browne, of Revolution Automotive, and Matt Alderman, of ID Motorsports, collaborated to tune Bill’s 2018 Mustang GT.
With the speed limiter removed and a custom tune from Revolution Automotive, Bill’s 2018 Race Red Mustang GT is showing performance gains of nearly 19 horsepower and 13 lb-ft of torque!
It’s early in the game and these cars are already responding nicely to mods, so we can’t wait to see what’s next for second-gen S550 development.