Performance Testing Redux - 2015 Ford Mustang GT Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 10,316
edited December 2015 in Ford
imagePerformance Testing Redux - 2015 Ford Mustang GT Long-Term Road Test

We brought our long-term 2015 Ford Mustang GT back to the track to see if the performance parts really made a difference.

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  • nuievenuieve Member Posts: 43
    edited December 2015
    Do automakers balance weight on their cars to account for extra 200lbs of the driver? They all seem to make sure all 4 corners are equal forgetting that 99% of the time there's only a driver in the car and thus extra 200 lbs on the left side. The cars should always be 150-200lbs lighter on the left side. On heavier cars it may not be a big issue but take 2400lbs Miata which is already Left-heavy according to measurmenets and add a typical American driver and you have LF-700 LR-700 RF-600 RL-600 sucky weight distribution
  • ebeaudoinebeaudoin Member Posts: 509
    nuieve said:

    Do automakers balance weight on their cars to account for extra 200lbs of the driver? They all seem to make sure all 4 corners are equal forgetting that 99% of the time there's only a driver in the car and thus extra 200 lbs on the left side. The cars should always be 150-200lbs lighter on the left side. On heavier cars it may not be a big issue but take 2400lbs Miata which is already Left-heavy according to measurmenets and add a typical American driver and you have LF-700 LR-700 RF-600 RL-600 sucky weight distribution

    My guess is they don't do that with this thought in mind- what do we do when the car is loaded with passengers and cargo? What if there are two passengers up front and one in rear, or vice versa? More importantly, how do we balance the vehicle to account for the endless possibilites of driver and passenger body type? There are drivers who weigh 150 lbs and there are those who weigh 350+ lbs. There are passengers who range in size from 15 lbs (infant in car seat) to said 350+ lbs adults. There are far too many variables to even attempt to balance the vehicle based on occupants.

    You have a valid theory from a racing/handling point of view but it's a little unrealistic when engineering a road car.

    Question- was Josh the driver for the first round of performance testing? We all know that driver skill can skew performance data like crazy.
  • tlangnesstlangness Member Posts: 123
    edited December 2015
    Yep - same driver.

    http://www.edmunds.com/ford/mustang/2015/long-term-road-test/2015-ford-mustang-gt-performance-tested.html
  • daryleasondaryleason Member Posts: 501
    Why oh why did y'all not snag two of the front tires off of another Mustang, slip those on the rear end, and go find out if it changed the performance testing numbers when y'all did this? It'd have been perfect to discover if the staggered wheel setup really mattered for the Mustang, since the specs are so close.
  • mtnbiker8mtnbiker8 Member Posts: 39
    Doesn't seem like those tires are hooking up all that well off the line. This car has a fair amount of wheel hop out of the box. There are some suspension mods out there that will fix that. Some stickier tires would help too.
  • mtnbiker8mtnbiker8 Member Posts: 39
    I'd also add that if you want more acceleration - an alignment with a little less negative camber in the back would help. Lowering adds camber and is a little hard to adjust out with the stock setup. You are riding on the inside edge of the rear wheels a little too much I'll bet. Better handling in a corner though. Interesting article.
  • kurtamaxxxguykurtamaxxxguy Member Posts: 1,798
    nuieve said:

    Do automakers balance weight on their cars to account for extra 200lbs of the driver? They all seem to make sure all 4 corners are equal forgetting that 99% of the time there's only a driver in the car and thus extra 200 lbs on the left side. The cars should always be 150-200lbs lighter on the left side. On heavier cars it may not be a big issue but take 2400lbs Miata which is already Left-heavy according to measurmenets and add a typical American driver and you have LF-700 LR-700 RF-600 RL-600 sucky weight distribution

    Not all cars are driven on left side: right hand drive cars are in use many places overseas. Would be difficult to re-engineer car to allow for easy relocation of 200 lbs to balance out driver location.
  • alphaprimalalphaprimal Member Posts: 1
    How much camber was used on the FRPP handling pack test?
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