With 750 hp and 625 lb-ft (846 Nm) of torque coming from that supercharged 315ci (5.2-liter) V8, the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 has the most horsepower- and torque-dense supercharged V8 currently fitted on a production car.
It's also the most powerful street-legal Ford ever made, and while the Blue Oval company hasn't been known for putting out top performance vehicles lately - even the Ford GT is only powered by a 213ci (3.5-liter) V6 EcoBoost engine, though it does make 647 hp - that's still quite an accolade to hold.
It's way too early to be thinking about that right now, but it's easy to imagine how Ford is going to have to come up with something even more special for the next GT500, and by "special" we mean "more power". Given today's trends, we wouldn't be surprised if that happened with a little help from an electric motor - just look at what Mercedes-AMG did with its GT 63 S E Performance for inspiration - but there are other ways to go about it.
One of them is being employed by the guys at Lethal Performance. They have taken a stock 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 and are preparing to up its power output considerably by having a Whipple supercharger of undisclosed volume fitted to the 315ci V8. This will involve removing the
Eaton TVS R2650 unit that Ford fits on the model in the first place, not to mention a new fuel system, modified headers, injectors, as well as the mandatory ECU tune.
What kind of power the Whipple-blown GT500 is going to produce remains to be seen but given how people are making 1,000 hp or more with twin-turbo kits on their Coyote V8 Mustang GTs, it's going to have to be something quite special. For now, though, since work on the car has yet to start, they've only put the Mustang on the dyno to get a few baseline pulls and see what kind of power it is capable of in its stock form.
Bear in mind, the crank horsepower provided by Ford is 750 hp, and the maximum torque, 625 lb-ft. Well, there's no point bothering to modify a GT500 if you're not going to break the 1,000 hp barrier, so expect Lethal Performance's project to aim for higher than that. We'll keep an eye on how things unfold, and we can't wait for that final dyno test after the whole build will have been completed. More to come but for now, here's how a stock GT500 behaves on a dyno, and watch out for an important tip if you ever plan on doing the same with one of these Mustangs.
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