Muscle Up! 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 gets pumped! – Road Test TV

March 30th, 2012 by Road Test TV

**UPDATE BELOW (4/27/12)**

Remember the adage “there’s no replacement for displacement”? Ford’s Special Vehicles Team couldn’t agree more. Riding the wave of recent displacement increases, as the Mustang GT and Camaro SS both bulked-up, the GT500 now sports a larger 5.8L heart.

SVT decided the 550hp supercharged 5.4L V8 from previous GT five-hundos, like the one we spotted in Germany, just wasn’t stout enough when put up next to the new Camaro ZL1’s 580hp supercharged 6.2L LSA V8. The 2013 GT500 also trumps the pinnacle of performance at GM, the 638hp Corvette ZR1! But by how much? Read on…

2013 Ford Shelby GT500 5.8L V8

The increase in cubic inches joined two other common motor mods for the Holy Trinity of muscle car performance improvements: heads and cams. In addition a new Eaton TVS supercharger was fitted, a larger intercooler spec’d to keep the intake charge cool, and the boost ratcheted to 15psi (from 9psi). The results are an additional 100hp and 90lb-ft of torque for a total of 650hp/600lb-ft!
**UPDATE (4/27/12): Ford’s SVT chief engineer, Jamal Hameedi, announced that the 2013 Shelby GT500 has a certified output of 662hp/630lb-ft!**

Satisfied with class-dominating power output, Ford’s Special Vehicles Team went nuts with what’s behind that brute of a powerplant. Now included with the 2013 GT500 are a carbon fiber driveshaft (a first for domestic street cars?), a larger diameter dual-plate clutch, beefier rear axle and…adjustable launch control?!

That’s right, Ford listened to complaints from earlier GT500 owners who threw around terms like “tractionless” and “unlaunchable” when describing their 0-60 or quarter mile efforts. The GT500 can now employ brainier launches by choosing a number between 2500 and 5500 RPM and letting it rip. Ford says only a professional stickmaster with lots of seat time can come close once this system is dialed-in to available traction. Other transmission and final gearing changes, as well as an 8 second 7000RPM over-rev feature, allow the 2013 GT500 to hit 60mph in first gear in a claimed 3.7 seconds. Bold figures from a lineage that could barely beat out a standard Mustang GT only one year ago (4.4 vs 4.8 seconds).

2013 Ford Shelby GT500

We’ll be watching carefully as the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500s hit the track.  Road Test TV will bring you videos, photos and more coverage of this model in the future.

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