Mustang Magic

It almost defies logic that Ford could build essentially the same car for 25 years without significant change, yet that's what they did from 1979 to 2004 with the Fox-platform Mustang. The Fox platform was originally designated "Fox" because it was designed as a contender to go head-to-head with Audi's new Fox (and VW's Dasher) in the late 1970s.

Now a footnote in history, the Ford Fairmont was the short-lived car originally spawned by the original Fox platform. But in Mustang livery, the Fox platform lived a long and illustrious career, getting better and better with each iteration. Yet time finally caught up with the Mustang as it became hopelessly outdated by more progressive designs. Ironically, one of those designs--GM's F-body of Camaro and Firebird fame--became the victim of outdated technology. And like a spinster who shows up solo at a 70-year high school reunion, the Mustang found itself with no surviving dance partner.

So as it enters its 41st year, the all-new redesigned 2005 Mustang finally ends up where it started: unique, universal and highly desirable. The latest version of the ponycar, as you shall see, stays true to its roots--it's affordable, it's powerful, and it projects a playful, friendly yet devilish personality that captures the imagination. It's as if the Mustang says, "Hey, let's go have some fun and piss off some Corvettes on the highway..."

The new car speaks to different generations of customers in different ways. Empty nesters in their 50s and 60s will see the exterior styling and be propelled back in time to the '60s. Guys in their 40s (like me) will remember the potent 5-liter Mustangs of the '80s that were cheap as spit and could hand an IROC its ass for many thousands less. Youngsters in their 20s will equally delight in beating up their Honda and Nissan counterparts in the affordable under-$20K 6-cylinder variant of the Mustang, all while sporting hip retro styling, 210 hp, and an optional competition-level MP3-compatible stereo.

The Mustang's designers have pulled off a miracle. They've not only created a really great looking and handling car, they've done it at a price everyone can afford. With the 210-hp V-6 starting at $19,410 and the base GT (sporting a huge list of standard equipment) at $24,995, the only people not seriously considering one probably don't drive. We fully expect the old phrase to apply once again: "hotcakes are selling like Mustangs..."

Ford expects the V-8 GT model to account for 30 percent of the total take, and that's what we're here to talk about today. In its simplest form, we have a 300-hp V-8 propelling a 3483-lb. coupe. Add a 150-lb. driver and you've got just over 12 lbs. of mass for every horsepower. That's going to put 0-60 performance for a manual trans GT somewhere in the low 5-second range. On paper at least, that's about what last year's Mach 1 was good for, but at a price that's significantly less for the 2005 GT.

But we feel guilty for reducing the sum of the Mustang's parts to just dollars versus straight-line performance. What the engineers have cooked up goes far beyond that. This is an all-new car, which allowed engineers to address the many shortcomings and bandages of the old car. And while the GT's base 300-hp V-8 is a real gem, it's the chassis that gets us really excited about the g-Machine possibilities.

Chassis
We'll start with the rear suspension. The old 8.8-inch rear was far stronger than contemporary rearends from GM, but its 28-spline axles broke like twigs at launch pads across the country. The fix used to be to pop in a set of 31-spline axles from a truck or order some from Ford SVO. The 2005 Mustang now has those 31-spline axles as standard equipment. All you need is a c-clip eliminator kit to be NHRA legal. Can you say "10-second ETs are no problem"?

The old rear used springs mounted on control arms, which reduced the spring's motion ratio, requiring more massive springs. Now lighter springs reside on axle-mounted perches bringing the motion ratio up to 1:1. Without bearing the car's load, the rear control arms can now be significantly lighter.

The unequal, non-parallel four link (and its wacky Rube Goldberg quad shock arrangement) of yore is now gone. In its place is a three-link arrangement with a Panhard bar. This system preserves pinion angle while decoupling roll and squat motions. (The old four-link had the joint duties of locating the axle laterally and longitudinally, as well as maintaining proper pinion angle. This resulted in severe roll bind, poor lateral stability and sometimes loss of control.) The new Panhard bar locates the rear laterally without causing the previous car's affliction with roll bind and deflection. Not only does it do everything significantly better than the old setup, it's lighter by a ton.

Rounding out the changes to the rear is the stabilizer bar, which has been taken off the control arms and mounted to the shock bracket. A pair of body-mounted struts now manages the fulcrum--like some of the more popular anti-sway bar conversions used in small-tire Mustang drag racing classes.The front suspension is even more remarkable than the rear. Once again, the springs have been moved outward to increase their motion ratio (i.e. the amount of spring motion in relation to suspension travel). The springs are integrated with the MacPherson struts and incorporate a canted orientation to reduce internal friction in the strut (the side load bind between the rod guide and the piston) during cornering. Like the rear, the front springs are now lighter than those on the previous model, but their new location also increases the space available in the engine room.

Removing the spring from the front control arm also takes a significant amount of load off that part. Front control arms no longer support the stabilizer bar; it now mounts directly to the struts by means of end links incorporating spherical bearings instead of rubber bushings. With the control arm's bending stress significantly reduced, it is now possible to make it much lighter. Instead of a flat stamping, the new control arm is now made up of two "U" shaped stampings placed back-to-back, then welded along a seam. This gives the part the appearance of an "I" channel cross-section, but without the associated cost. Weight is purportedly along the lines of an aluminum forging.

The new front control arm is now shaped like a reverse L, as opposed to the outgoing car's "A" shape. With the old arm, lateral forces (i.e. cornering loads) and longitudinal forces (i.e. frontal forces like potholes) where shared by each leg of the "A." Those bushings at each joint tended towards compromise as they had to both absorb road bumps while being firm enough to manage cornering forces (designing a bushing more for one function means doing less of the other and vice versa). Now, the short leg in the reverse L handles cornering forces only. Its bushing is compact and much more firm than the old car's bushings. Deflection and compression in the bushing is minimized, which improves turn-in feel and transient response. The other bushing is quite the opposite. It now handles the road bumps and chuck holes on the longitudinal vector by using a large bushing, which is fluid-filled with many micro channels. It acts like a mini-shock absorber and does an exceptional job of smoothing out the ride and isolating road noise.

The steering is still accomplished through a rack and pinion, but it is now directly mounted to the cross member rather than through rubber bushings. This improves steering feel dramatically, but without undue harshness. Again, this is a dividend paid by the reverse L control arm and the fact that road irregularities and bumps are largely isolated by those fluid-filled rear bushing we spoke of.

All these changes to the front suspension have yet another positive influence--it has allowed a lot of the mass and structure to be removed from the No. 2 cross member (commonly known in the old car as the K-member). This means the engine can sit lower, which has further positive impact on the balance of the car as a whole.

This improvement in balance is aided by an aluminum engine block that is 75 pounds lighter than the outgoing iron block. As evidenced by the improved front/rear weight bias, the rear brakes have been upgraded from solid rotors to vented rotors.

Speaking of brakes, the front brakes now have 14 percent more swept area than last year's. Front rotors measure 12.4 inches in diameter and are paired with aluminum dual-piston floating calipers by TRW. ABS is standard equipment and rear brakes consist of 11.8-inch vented rotors mated to single-piston iron calipers. We put these brakes through some serious pounding in mountainous terrain and we couldn't get them to fade or bottom out. We cooked the brakes all day and found them to be over-engineered for the car, which makes them just about right for track day with only a pad upgrade required.

There's a lot of capability in the Mustang's new suspension, but none of it would be worth a tinker's damn without a good chassis to hang it on. One goal the engineers had was to increase the body stiffness--31 percent in the torsional mode and 49 percent in the bending mode. Likewise, local stiffness around key suspension attachment points was improved to make the associated bushings more effective. All of this improves steering, handling and ride at the same time. This technical achievement stands out for not only being the single most important contribution to handling and ride, but because it was accomplished at a very reasonable cost.

Long-time Fox-body Mustang abusers (myself included) know how flimsy the old chassis was. Subframe connectors have long been considered mandatory before any kind of performance enhancements can take place. Apparently, the designers of the new Mustang were paying attention because the front frame rails now continue all the way to the rear of the car where they stop a few inches shy of tying in to the rear suspension. This effectively makes the car a full frame; the only difference is that it's all stamped and welded together in unibody fashion rather than being a separate body on frame. Consequentially, the car feels as stiff as a double shot of Everclear.

We've long known the benefits of having a Panhard bar, as the Maximum Motorsports suspension in our PHR project car can attest. In the new Mustang, the Panhard bar is augmented by a very strong boxed bracket which spreads lateral loading throughout the rear of the car.

While we're at the back of the car, we were impressed with the rear frame rails, which feature deep spring pockets. Normally, the clearance needed for spring travel is achieved by a severe bend in the rail. Here, the bend in the rail is minimized by the use of a deep pocket in the rail. This preserves strength and stiffness without sacrificing compliance in the suspension.Overall, we were very impressed with the structural integrity of the rear suspension. In our subsequent drive (we'll get to that in a minute), we could uncover no faults. Our only misgiving was the chassis tie-in point for the lone upper control arm in the center of the chassis. Our past experience is that even with two upper control arms, drag racers manage to pull the welds out of the boxes very easily in stick cars going as slow as mid 11s. The solution is usually to box the upper control arms in with additional plates and gussets (this is known as a "torque box" in Mustang parlance). We found the upper control arm box not even welded in--it's a bracket that screws in with what appear to be two 3/8-inch diameter bolts! No biggie--we know you guys'll get on that problem right away. We don't think this will be an issue on street-driven cars or even road raced cars--just stick shift drag cars with slicks.

Powertrain
In the engine room, we're pleased that Ford was able to coax even more power from its 4.6L modular V-8. The pony count is up 40hp over the previous GT, standing now at 300hp. This was accomplished by three critical improvements: the addition of an extra intake valve in each cylinder, the utilization of variable cam timing, and the vast improvement of fuel charge mixture motion via a computer-controlled charge motion control valve (CMCV).

Since the mod motor's inception, its cylinder heads have always been plagued with poor charge motion characteristics, especially at lower engine speeds where mixture is critical for good torque and emissions. A series of bandages over the years--from swirl dams in the combustion chamber to inlet manifold runner control (IMRC for short) and four-valve heads--helped matters incrementally, but never made for a satisfying meal. Now after putting up with this state of affairs for the last 14 years (the mod motor first saw use in the Lincoln Town Car of 1991!), the fix is here, and it's beautiful.

The power comes on strong and keeps on coming, right up to the 6,250 rpm redline. You're not going to mistake it for the LS1 torque monster in your dad's GTO, but it's pretty damn close. Still, at 281 cubic inches, that's 1.06hp per cubic inch. If the Ford were 346 cubic inches (same size as the LS6 or the Dodge Hemi) it would make 369hp at that rate of exchange. That fits respectably in between the Hemi and the LS6.

The extra intake valve in the three-valve head, the variable cam timing and the CMCV all work together seamlessly as the engine accelerates. At the low end of the power band, the CMCV creates turbulence by inserting itself in the air path just after the fuel injector. The partial obstruction causes a tumbling action in the runner that asserts itself as a more combustible, quicker-burning mixture. While the CMCV decreases its intervention as engine rpm climbs, the valve timing increases for both intake valves and the exhaust valve.

Intake and exhaust timing is simultaneously advanced or retarded by use of oil-fed variable cam phasing (VCP) that uses oil pressure to move the cam sprocket relative to the camshaft. A solenoid directs the oil pressure into different chambers of the valve control timing mechanism (VCT) to enable the advance or retard movement. Of course, all of this is directed by the powertrain control module.

Variable valve timing is already a common sight in smaller four-cylinder engines, but this is something new with the Ford V-8. Translation: what might be good for a few horsepower boost in a sub 2-liter four-banger is worth a ton in a V-8. Visualize this: at low engine speed, short seat timing on the intake and exhaust valves ensures plenty of retained cylinder pressure, which equals better torque. Emissions are also improved because overlap is near zero. At higher rpm where power relies more on manifold tuning and charge inertia to fill the cylinder, the seat timing is increased--along with overlap--to increase power. You get the best of both worlds with variable valve timing: great low-end and a great top-end.

The addition of variable valve timing and the charge motion control valve allows the compression ratio to be increased this year to 9.8:1 while running on regular 87 octane fuel. That's a big plus in an age where oil is topping $55 a barrel.

Cosmetically, the new three-valver is a looker. Scalloped cast magnesium valve covers, a dual-inlet front entry throttle body and a compact accessory drive mounted right to the engine will ensure that the hood stays popped open for more than just maintenance. The cast iron exhaust manifolds look nearly like headers and were pulse tuned for incremental horsepower gain. The mod motor gets electronic throttle control finally, which simplifies a multitude of powertrain housekeeping chores such as torque management for the new 5R55S five-speed automatic, cruise control and idle air control functions. Hot rodders will likewise appreciate the simpler disassembly and installation, not to mention not having Ford's notoriously finicky TV cable to adjust.

Ignition is now coil-on-plug, like most engines these days. (We thought the old Mustang's EDIS quad coil packs looked silly strapped to the front of the engine with all those wires running everywhere.) Now the 4.6 looks like a real engine, not the bride of Frankenstein. The new coils sit right on top of deep recess spark plugs with no plug wires in evidence anywhere. The new engine looks so good, Ford has decided to drop the intake manifold beauty cover seen in earlier pre-production media photos. We kind of liked it, but Ford says it will be available as a dealer-installed option.

A pair of close-coupled cat-cons mate to the cast-iron headers and dump into a true dual 2.5-inch stainless steel exhaust. That's up from 2.25 inches, which has been the standard size since the Reagan administration. The exhaust sound is rich and unmistakable--one member of our press party saying it was a dead ringer for the soundtrack in the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt. We like it too, and especially appreciate that there is little other extraneous vibration coming into the cabin other than the exhaust's soothing throb.

We never got to lay eyes on the new 5-speed automatic equipped GT, let alone drive one, but we're told it has been designed with close gear ratios to keep the engine in the fat part of the power curve. A Tremec 3650 5-speed is standard on GT, and it feeds torque to a two-piece driveshaft that looks easily swappable for a one-piece race unit. Nevertheless, we liked the smoothness provided by the two-piece unit at triple digit speeds. Long prop shafts can set up bad vibrations at high speed, even when they are balanced to perfection. At worst, they can rattle your teeth out and even self-destruct (fourth-gen Camaros and Firebirds coming immediately to mind). Unless outrageous power levels call for it, we don't see any reason to convert to a single-piece driveshaft.

Interior
Moving inside, there is a staggering amount of improvement over the outgoing Mustang. Just getting into the car, you notice the quality in the pull-out door handle. The interior plastics are--well, plastic. But they are now, most importantly, matching. Textures and colors now look like they belong together. The occasional splash of aluminum and chrome is a classy touch on a car of this price and the instrument panel is the perfect blend of functionality and retro styling. We found the seats a lot easier to get comfortable in than the old seats and the shifter, most importantly, is exactly where it's supposed to be--in the same area code as the driver.

We love the new leather-wrapped tri-spoke steering wheel (it's standard) with aluminum accents and the center console is the most useful and comfortable to ever come on a Mustang. The manual shifter did strike us as too far recessed into the console, but the knob turned out to be exactly where the hand wants it. As we later drove the car aggressively around curvy mountain roads, we found the seats to be less supportive than we liked, but other than last year's SVT Cobra seats, we've yet to find a Mustang seat that had enough hug.

After making customers suffer through decades of Mustangs with abysmal pedal placement, Ford has finally got this monkey off its back. The pedals are killer and can make anybody into a heel-and-toe downshift king. The placement is even better than Corvette or Cadillac's race-bred CTS-V. The new GT will make one heck of a track car with the pedals and gear shifter placement finally sorted out.

The product literature says all Mustangs come standard with tilt steering wheel, but we don't agree. This annoying Mazda-style unit pivots so far down the column, there's only a scant 1.5 inch of travel at the instrument panel. What's more, there's nearly zero adjustment to the steering wheel angle, which is half of what you wanted it for in the first place. The tactile quality as it traverses its range of motion just feels cheap. Give us back the old tilt wheel mechanism. Fortunately, the steering wheel angle is already pretty good in its limited range, and certainly it's preferable to having no tilt, as Mustangs did from 1990 to 1993.

With an additional six inches tacked to its wheelbase, you'd expect the rear seat room to be better, and it is. We took a few moments to sit in the rear seat and were rewarded with the pleasant notion that a Mustang could actually be used for a family vacation in a pinch. The seat release lever is now at the top of the seat, making ingress easier. The plastic seatbelt loop on the side of the seat is gone, so it's now much easier to trip on the belt when getting out.

An FM/AM radio with single CD player comes standard on GT models, but the real news is a pair of optional "Shaker" audio systems. The Shaker 500 features a six CD head unit compatible with MP3 tracks. This feeds 500 watts of power to subwoofers contained in sealed enclosures mounted in each door. The Shaker 1000 adds another 500 watts to the fray via two more enclosed subwoofers in the trunk. You'll be "woofin'" so much, the animal control officer will be chasing you down the street!

First Drive
Getting into the car for the first time--this after driving the outgoing Mustang--we felt as though we were sitting down in the car. The sensation is that the cowl is much higher. This is good in the sense that the driver feels more protected, but some might feel confined. By contrast, the 2004 Mustang seat feels like a perch from which you direct attention downward. Owners of the outgoing car take note: those intrusive power seat controls on the front of the seat have now been moved to the side of the seat where your leg can't move them by accident. That's good because the six-way power driver seat with lumbar adjustment is now standard. The power windows (which are standard on GT) now feature express up as well as express down. The old car had just express down and on the driver's side only. Sometimes the old car's switch didn't work when you wanted it to, or worked when you didn't want it to. The new car features a dual-position switch that eliminates this annoying trait. Hold it down (or pull it up) to the first click and the window moves manually. Push it the extra click and it goes all the way up or down. It's a small thing, but we really like it.

Driving the GT for the first time was easy as all the important stuff is located where you expect it. We never took out the owner's manual to operate stuff on the center stack--even the top-of-the-line stereo system worked intuitively the very first time.

The manual trans shifter on the old car was directly attached to the transmission, but due to the forward placement of the engine, the lever was quite a stretch, requiring ones right arm to be fully extended to accomplish shifting into fifth gear. As we said before, the new shifter is perfectly placed, but there is a small cost to this convenience. Ford uses a rod linkage to accomplish this correct placement, and claims "quick gear engagement and a solid feel." Our one and only attempt to powershift second gear netted us a rubbery thud followed by the sound of grinding synchros. We'd rather step on a cat than try this again. Fortunately, we fully expect a truckload of vastly improved shifters to hit the aftermarket about three hours after the car hits the showroom.

Before hitting the twisties along California's roller coaster Angeles Crest Highway, we puttered around in traffic for an hour and found the suspension somewhat harsh. More specifically, the car was very well isolated from road noise, engine noise and normal creaks and rattles, but the spring rates and damper rebound settings seemed much stiffer than the author's 2003 GT. When asked about this, the engineers said owner feedback from the last car showed that suspension to be too soft. Our conclusion is that PHR readers will absolutely love it--it's demonstrably biased toward the enthusiast. But will schoolteachers and bank tellers like it? Maybe Ford is betting people will be so happy to own one that they just won't care. We think they're right.

Handling
Hitting the curves, we found the 2005 Mustang to be exceptionally well balanced. Years of driving Fox-platform Mustangs have trained us to anticipate the snap oversteer which follows a long period of annoying understeer. That very non-linear behavior has been completely banished in the new car with the three-link Panhard rear suspension. You can trailbrake the 2005 Mustang to almost absurd levels of incompetence without it coming unglued in the rear, and as long as the surface is flat, you'd never know it from a car with IRS.

The real litmus test of a good handling car is how soon in the corner you can start dialing in the power. Rotating the car into the apex is easy. The outside tires take a firm set and we found we could start putting power down well before the apex. This is partly a result of the excellent Pirelli PZero Nero all-season tires. These new skins are the best performing all-season performance tires we've tested. It's funny that the tread pattern doesn't look all that aggressive, but the grip is there.

Yet the tires can't take all the credit here. The benefits of the reverse L front suspension were evident from the first turn taken at speed. With all the slop and compliance taken out of the lateral axis, the turn-in and transitional handling was immediate and precise. Here's one area where the aftermarket suspension tuners will be hard-pressed to make major gains. Throw on a set of R-compound tires, a race seat and some race pads and your track car is ready.As a side note, lowering one of these cars will have a negative effect on suspension geometry, most notable on the rear axle centerline and bump steer.

Given the car's relatively stiff suspension, we thought the tire-to-fender clearance could've been safely less that half what it is, but don't think for a minute that a quick chop of the coils is going to do the trick. Right now, the folks at Steeda, Kenny Brown and Saleen have already fine-tuned their respective suspension packages for the 2005. That's where we would start if we needed more grip and a meaner stance.

The flexible and powerful V-8 engine also plays a roll in aggressive handling maneuvers. Balancing around the corner by breathing on and off the throttle is easy and fun with the Mustang. The fact that you're getting your rocks off on the great engine sound is just icing on the cake. And while we're on the subject of engine sound, we can positively say that there's less of what you don't want to hear (i.e. valvetrain clatter, A/C compressor clutch, electric fan switching, cockpit drone) and more of what you do want to hear (the rumble and crackle of the exhaust), thanks to better engine mounts, an improved accessory drive and cockpit insulation.

The day of flogging the 2005 Mustang GT quickly came to an end. Later, I crawled back into my 2003 GT, scheming how to get out of the payment and into a 2005. We're guessing a lot of you will be doing the same once you take a test drive. By virtue of a back-to-back drive with the outgoing GT, it was very apparent that the increase in body stiffness plays a significant role in the new car's handling character. That additional stiffness was paid for by additional body structure in key places, and as we know, that means extra weight. The fact that the 2005 weighs only 125 pounds more (give or take a few) doesn't do justice to the reality that there's a lot more occupant protection, more effective crumple zones, and more beefcake to the chassis. That's because a lot was taken out in other areas to pay for this--principally the change to an aluminum engine block, the lighter front and rear control arms and springs, the lighter secondary cross member, the deletion of rear quad shocks and one upper control arm, and the use of an aluminum hood. With six inches of additional wheelbase and a more favorable front/rear weight bias, what little extra weight there is has been put in all the right places.

Simply put, this is a car you will be able to live with for a very long time, and if this version goes another 25 years, we can live with that too. It's ironic that the 2005 Mustang is built at Mazda's Flat Rock, Michigan plant. For it was that plant which was supposed to build the Mustang's front-wheel drive replacement back in 1990--we know that car now as the ill-fated Probe. Thank goodness Mustang loyalists raised such a stink back in 1989. Turns out, the replacement for the Fox-body Mustang will indeed be built in Flat Rock, but this time it will be a car worthy of wearing the haulin' ass pony badge!

THE DYNO DOESN'T LIE

A few weeks after driving the 2005 Mustang GT for the first time, we pried the keys to another 2005 GT from the hands of Ford's West Coast press fleet handlers. We had hoped to drag test the 5-speed manual trans GT at Fontana, but got bumped off our Fontana test date by sister magazine Motor Trend (who managed to go 13.6 at 99 mph with a 5-speed automatic-equipped GT). We already heard how Hot Rod went 13.9 at over 105 mph with a worn-out prototype manual-trans car, so we decided to bring you Dynojet numbers from a new production car instead. We made four runs with the GT on a tank of 87 octane pump gas. All runs made peak horsepower within a 2.5-hp range--the lowest being 265hp and the best being 267.5hp (5600 rpm). Torque peaked between 280 and 284 ft.-lbs. (4400 rpm).

Considering that our engine was still green (it had about 1,300 miles on the odometer) these figures look to be markedly higher than the factory rating after parasitic driveline loss is taken into account. We'd love to see what one would dyno after about 5,000 miles, but another 10hp is about normal. If the power comes up 10hp after break-in, that would put flywheel output over 320hp after a nominal 15 percent driveline loss.