Redesigned for the 2024 model year, the Mustang is more sophisticated than ever before. Even though it's closely related to the sixth-gen before it, the devil is in the details as far as the new S650 is concerned.
The 2.3-liter EcoBoost, for example, now features the Modular Power Cylinder engine architecture. It further sports direct fuel injection and port fuel injection, a low-inertia turbocharger of the twin-scroll variety, an electronic wastegate, an integrated hot-side EGR, and an integrated air induction system.
Referred to as Gen 4, the latest update for the 5.0-liter Coyote is best summed up as dual intakes and throttle bodies. More air equals more power, and the GT certainly makes plenty of that: 480 from the outset or a HEMI 392-shaming 486 with the fancy exhaust.
StangMode recently took delivery of a Grabber Blue 2024 Ford Mustang GT, which isn't exactly stock. From the MBRP resonator delete to the passenger seat delete, Weld racing wheels, skinny tires up front, and full-on drag radials in the rear, this pony was modified to be adequately impressive at the strip.
Pictured at Maple Grove Raceway in Pennsylvania, the lovingly baptized Papa Smurf dukes it out against a 2018 model year Camaro SS with a few mods of its own. The list includes a Borla cat-back exhaust, Kooks headers, and a cold-air intake from K&N. The tire setup, however, isn't as good as the Mustang's front runners and road-legal drag radials out back.
Both cars are running stock ECU software. Still, the blue-painted car rocks a 10-speed auto compared to an 8-speed auto for the Chevy. The Ford Motor Company's 10R80 is pretty quick on upshifts, and – obviously enough – better than GM's 8L90. Be that as it may, the Camaro is lighter. Had it been stock, the auto-equipped coupe would have tipped the scales at 3,697 pounds (1,677 kilograms) compared to 3,752 pounds (1,702 kilograms) for the Mustang.
Although the S650 has a horsepower advantage (486 compared to 455), bear in mind the small-block V8 in the sixth-gen Camaro is torquier (455 compared to 418 for the GT with the active-valve exhaust). If you were a betting man, would you put your money on the Camaro or the Mustang in a quarter-mile drag?
StangMode clocked 11.951 seconds at 119.20 miles per hour (191.83 kilometers per hour) in Papa Smurf, whereas the Camaro's owner finished the race in 12.372 seconds at 115.09 miles per hour (185.21 kilometers per hour). Had it not been for drag radials and front runners, it would've been much closer. Had the Camaro been equipped with the 10-speed automatic of the Mustang (10L80 in GM vernacular), it would have been closer still between these two.
Considering that 2024 is the first model year of the seventh-gen Mustang, the S650 still has plenty more to prove in the coming years. The Camaro will be discontinued in early 2024, but it's not going away for good. Hearsay suggests an electric sedan replacement for the Mustang's archrival, although it remains to be seen how that's going to pan out.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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