Personally, I like the fact that this car has a stock drivetrain. Sure, it would have been faster with a built motor or a supercharger, but so what? That's not what Maximum Motorsports does. What they sent is an accurate, and honest, representation of what they actually do, which tells me that they not only have confidence in their product, but integrity as well. Nice to see that in a company these days.
iDrive4fun93 i agree, its better than all the ones from 2015 to now, as well as the ones from 2010 and earlier. it had a look of muscle to it that the new ones just dont have.
Yeah I wish they would have given it more styling points as I personally love the way this car looks. One of my favorites. Very mean looking on the road. Especially the Shelby’s
One correction to the commentary. MM manufactures a significant part of the struts and shocks used on the car. Basically JRi does the hydraulic portion to our specification and we do everything else.
Matt has been talking about this? Im really surprised they closed it. Its such a popular road to go between a few different counties. I drive this road 3-5 times a week. I love it, it is very technical and dangerous.
TacticalTurtle Literally just search The Smoking Tire on any podcast app and the show will come up. They didnt have any long conversations that I can remember about this contest but he did mention it and mention the shoot and closing the road a few times.
I really like this Mustang build because it reminds me so much of how I modified my Miata. It's a mostly stock powertrain car, but has a custom high end coilover/suspension setup, upgraded brakes, upgraded cooling, chassis bracing etc. Last weekend at Thunderhill I was hitting berms and jumping off them and was amazed at how well and quickly the car would settle itself back because of the awesome shock control. Then I drove it home 3 hours down I-5 in relative comfort and made it back with not even as much as an ache in my back. Everything feels to be in perfect balance.
I haven't seen much of this gentleman Matt Farah in the past, but I have been watching these shootout videos and am really enjoying his style of review journalism. Straightforward, comprehensive, and honest, Mr. Farah gives me a lot of good info in a short amount of time without the unnecessary fluff. Mr. Keen is a great compliment to the street review for the track side as well. Thank you for the videos, I really enjoy them! Subbed :)
I recon that out of all of the cars i saw in the competition, this Mustang is the one i'd trully want to own. In the end, it pushes all the right buttons and doesn't look outlandish. It's subtle, fun, relativelly cheap and i have no doubt that this is how any Mustang should be from the factory! Well done Maximum Motorsport, you know how to build a car.
i know the internet wants the stuff noone can afford, but this is a car than can get me excited (and i don't even like the Mustang. I prefer cars build like they belong in this century). I love the mentality behind this car. Finesse over outright power. Kudos :)
Amazing car and an amazing review. Handling and suspension mods should get a way bigger platform than they do now. This changes the character of the car so much more than adding 50% more power. And especially here in the Swiss Alps, it's all about handling. Great work, Matt and crew!
Seems like an amazing bang for the buck. Especially considering how well it did with so many stock parts in use. More power, more tire and accessories like short throw and you could embarrass much more expensive vehicles. I'm impressed
This is a great series. Something every car enthusiast's, gear head, and auto enthusiasts who mod cars would love to see. What's the point of putting all these mods if they can't stack up, this is why I love this channel.
A wise man in motorsport told me once, if you want to make your car faster start with tyres and suspension and do the engine at the end if money is left. Thats what Maximum did and the result seems to be really great. Often tuners just do engine mods and put a expensive suspension in the car but do not take the time to adjust it correctly.
First off great video and I really like how the competition is set up! However, I feel that in terms of points awarded there is too much weight riding on lap time. After all the video is called Tuner Car Shoot Out, not Track Car Shoot Out. Maybe the next time you do one of these series (I realize that all 5 of these episodes have probably been recorded already) maybe take some weight away from lap time and distribute it between the other categories. In no way am I saying that lap time isn't important, because it does have precedence, but some people are more concerned about how a car feels on the road or track compared to how fast it does it. Once again great video guys, I'll definitely keep watching!
Evan Rouse from the very beginning, we decided the point of a tuner car was to be fast, and so we wanted to weigh lap time very heavily. There were no power/track mod limits. Anything goes but tires and plates. We told the tuners; they all agreed to participate.
Fair enough, I appreciate the response! I've been a long time TST fan and have always loved the content. Keep up the good work with /Drive, and I look forward to the rest of this series!
the mustang shoulda had a built motor to compete with that porsche and nissan. those lap times would of been awesome if it was a built coyote with cams, cobra jet intake manifold, long tubes, full exhaust etc... the coyote's can get to 500whp all motor fairly easily. that woulda been nice competition for the faster cars.
man that mustang is genius, i know most people will hate on it because well its a mustang, but if you think about it if you can get it to handle and brake well the car is perfect; a 2014 mustang has 420 horsepower which is more than enough and with much better steering than a average mustang u have one hell of a car
Texarmageddon oh ok ; but u can really compare it to any sports car of the price and it probably has a better interior, i just got a scion frs and that interior i think is way better than a mustang
I love that a 2014 Mustang was picked for this shootout but I definitely think that the wrong Mustang was chosen. For $11k a you could buy everything that is on the car plus a watts link, front strut tower brace, rear x-brace, upgraded to coil-overs, and would have plenty of money left over for opening up the engine, adding exhaust mods, and possibly making it look nicer. Im not saying it would win the showdown but it would definitely put a a better fight.
For anybody that's curious about running those R888's on the street, just listen to the amount of tire roar they have in this video. Every time they have a drive by scene you can hear them screaming over the engine lol.
Not really, sometimes you have to acknowledge the fact that other people like to have their car look good on the outside too. Not everyone wants to have cars that look like what everyone else is using. One of the reason why some bodykits that reduce the performance are still popular.
I think you are misunderstanding what they mean by style, Being a tuner "competition" style means subjective improvement over stock by modifications done by the tuner company. Or i'm completely wrong.
It's stupid because it is completely subjective. Lots of people love the looks of Mustangs. I for one don't. Lots of people hate how the Nissan Murano looks, I love it. It's also something that is very easy for someone to determine for themselves, if they like how a car looks. No need for the producers to give us their egotastic opinions.
It's stupid because it is completely subjective. Lots of people love the looks of Mustangs. I for one don't. Lots of people hate how the Nissan Murano looks, I love it. It's also something that is very easy for someone to determine for themselves, if they like how a car looks. No need for the producers to give us their egotastic opinions. The same can be said for tuner mods to the looks.
They're complaining of a lack of grip on a track covered in sand! I know all cars competed on the same track, but it looks slippery as heck. Anyways, MM and Jack Hidley did a great job. They helped my buddy Ken with his modified Fox chassis '86 Cougar V8 sort out a lot of details. With some MM components it turned his heavily modified car into a smooth riding, great handling car.
Does anyone know what wheels these are ? I think they look great. Also does anyone have exact specs on wheel/tire setup used on the mustang, looking to do something very similar for 2011 mustang gt tha that will be used primarily for autocross and time attack
If there wasn't a Watts link installed (maybe it just wasn't mentioned?), then a fundamental suspension component was completely overlooked. As you well know, it's a critical piece of the puzzle for all solid-axle S197s. Also, not bashing the videos or idea (awesome videos/content!) but you could dump 40k into the Mustang and win the competition on all accounts, and still be $230k ahead. Just sayin'. Keep up the good work gents.
Cthon maximum Motorsports actually think that watts link have more tire deflection (side to side movement) so they always use pan hard bars. Even in racecars
Really enjoyed this. Do you guys happen to have any times for stock examples of all your competition cars for that track? It would be cool to see which is more improved over their stock versions.
no, we don't. It was very, very hard to find any accurate information for stock vehicle lap times there. Motor trend had run a couple of laps in a couple of cars, but none that we had.
This is a very good review, I was curious to see how a car would do with suspension only being upgraded especially on this mustang, it does justice to the power made by the engine.
With all the respect in the world intended, how did you only manage a 2:05? Coyotes (including mine) that are far from "full" suspension have been running low 2's at Chuckwalla for sometime now. Even before my watts linkage which is an off the shelf item, with some poor man's KW V3 coilovers, front bar, rear everything was running a similar time and I'm like a 6/10 driver on a good day. Bone stock drivetrain, 200 treadwear tires.
Fair points, however, did you notice how dusty the track was? Is it always like that? I think in the podcast Matt said something about nothing having been run on that track for a couple months as well, could be wrong.
Mustang Aficionado it was 114 degrees that day, which may account for some losses. Also we ran CW, whereas most laps are set CCW. Could account for others. Besides that, I trust Leh makes the car go as fast as it will go.
Not having the track rubbered in, is going to make a huge difference. In addition, a good professional race driver, when testing other peoples cars, is going to leave in some safety margin. If they wreck someones car, it looks really bad for multiple reasons.
Marc, Even if there is insurance or a liability release, it doesn't matter. No one involved in this wants a car to be crashed. It is bad for everyone involved, even if you ignore the direct financial aspects of it. The list of reasons is long. Your comments about the testing being invalid because the cars weren't tested under the same conditions makes no sense to me. All of the cars involved were tested on the same track, by the same driver on the same day. The comparison here is between these five cars, NOT these five cars and some other cars that didn't drive this track, this day by this driver.
Put a set of Maximum Motorsports adjustable strut mounts on my '13 GT when I did lowering springs. Those things ARE THICK! Very strong, very well made. Tons of rubber on the mount. Seriously, if you take out the stock strut mounts and compare to the MM mounts you will laugh.
Matt that is a great looking watch. Mind letting us know what brand and style it is? And the theme of this shootout is very cool. I enjoy your one takes and not even 4 minutes in I can tell I am going to enjoy this just as much.
I drive HWY 74 all the time. Its a good technical road to drive. Just wondering when they did this? I drive it almost 4-5 times a week, never saw or heard of it being shut down. Let me know when you guys are down here again. We got some really nice Supra's here, Camaros, GTRs and a slew of exotics. We always go up 74, to vista point . Ive had the privilege of driving this road in a 400hp Subaru STi, 700HP Supra.. This road is so nice. Chuckawalla is a awesome track as well. I've never gone on it in a car. I look forward to driving it soon ,
i missed a good quibble. your mom is right though, everybody has a mustang. We did the right thing and crushed ours. That being said, id buy the mustang featured.
You could just gut all the extra weight from the driver's seat back, get a lighter hood and battery up front and you would probably be more than happy with the power level. Plus the extra weight gone would increase the handling as well.
Hi Matt, side question, what is the watch you were wearing while driving the Mustang? And very incisive test, really like this format, and the Mustang looking really clean.
why didn't MM install a watt's link kit? whiteline, Fays2, or the new BMR setup have time and time again been proven to completely revamp the overall suspension dynamics on the s197 chasis. the omission of this crucical modification calls to question the notion that this car has a "Full suspension treatment". TLDR: y no watts?
Proof is in the pudding of what you do and do not need to make the S197 a track ready car. As far as a watts link goes, there would have been zero benefit. Do the math, look at the geometry, and look at the Mustangs that are winning NASA championships, none of them have a watts link.
i don't intend to start an argument with you, but telling me to "do the math" is a pretty poor point. a lot of mustangs run a watts link, the difference between that and a panhard bar set up (as from factory) is night and day. Unless you're running a mustang on an oval, the panhard bar is utterly garbage on a road course. Also, referencing an obscure racing series, which probably has its own formula for modifications and their subsequent classifications, is really not doing you any justice.
Nick, Kolton isn't referencing an obscure Mustang racing series. NASA AI (American Iron) and SCCA A-sedan by far have the largest number of Mustangs being raced in a road course series. The suspension rules in A-sedan are extremely limited, so most of the parts made by MM, Cortex, Griggs, etc. can't be used. AI is the best place to look for a fair comparison of them as the tires, wheels and engine power are essentially specified. Suspension, suspension tuning and driving are the biggest differences. Physics and I disagree with you on the subject of the Watts link versus Panhard bar. I'm glad to discuss this with you, but I suggest that you make references from RCVD (Race Car Vehicle Dynamics). That will put both of us on the same page for a discussion.
I think that we had less than two weeks to supply the car for the event. Making untested modifications to an engine, when the car is tested at a track which could have an ambient temperature of 105F, is not a good idea.
And there are lots of cars at track weekends with overheating engines in limp mode, melted carpets and other problems from untested modifications. The best way to show up at a competition and have a chance of winning is by knowing that what you brought isn't going to break. When Ford calibrates the engine, they do so with safety margins built in so the engine will still make full power even in a 105F environment. Virtually all aftermarket tunes just crank up the ignition timing to generate the highest possible hp number on a dyno. That is guaranteed to not work on the track when driven at 100%.
For a car that's all suspension, I really with you showed the car on a lift. How would this kit compare with an SLA system like this one (cortexracing.com/product/cortex-entry-level-double-a-arm-sla-front-suspension-2005-2014-s197-mustang-copy/) with proper tuning/components?
