Jake Long, Jon Lund, and Ken Bjonnes.

For those of us that can recall. In 1979, freshman, Eric Dickerson and Craig James rushed for 1,239 yards for the SMU Mustangs. This brought forth the creation of “The Pony Express”.  Later Dickerson and James took the Mustangs to the Holiday Bowl in 1980, and their first national ranking in over 10 years. The duo put SMU on the football map. Thirty years later we could possibly be witnessing the second rendition of the Pony Express.

In 2004, Jon Lund purchased tuning software from Ken Bjonnes. The two hit it off and have been friends ever since. The tuning duo of Jon Lund and Ken Bjonnes have left the Mustang performance world with their jaws dropped.  There is no question, the new 5.0 Mustangs is no slouch. We don’t believe anyone expected the kind of performance that these guys have gotten out of them. Four different 5.0’s, four different power adders, all with the same results – ridiculously fast times for cars that you can take grandmother to church in on Sunday. Flying the Lund Racing banner, Ken and Jon have already tuned one 8 second 5.0 Mustang and have three more that are well within reach of turning in just as stellar times.

The Sterling Grey 5.0 has been the work horse for Jon and Ken. This car has been used in development for the twin turbo kit that has so far run a best of 9.42 at 150mph. This car was also taken to the Texas mile where it posted a best of 206mph in the standing mile, an extremely versatile car. The master minds of this car are Ken Bjonnes, Jon Lund and Jake Long – who ahve became partners in a new company that will be releasing this kit at a later date. The three worked in collaboration to soon deliver a twin turbo kit that has been very well thought out. You can be assured the kit has been put through its paces and researched to a extraneous level. More information and kit specifics can be found at TT50.com.

The lone 8 second car at this time is owned by 5.0 King of the Street winner Chris Cruz posting a 8.99 at 153mph. The white 5.0 is powered by a L&M short block, stock heads and cams and a Whipple 4.0 liter supercharger. Next up, the blue Stainless Works 5.0 owned by Terry Reeves. Powered by a BES short block,  JPC heads and cams. A Vortech JT-Trim supercharger is providing the extra boost needed to lay down 9.30’s at 149mph. The black 5.0 is owned by Joe Coffeman. A Ford Racing Aluminator short block, with stock heads and cams take on all incoming boost the Procharger F1-A can throw at it. Joe has put up a best time of  9.49 at 143mph.

All four of the Mustangs use the factory auto transmission, which is rated at approximately 800 foot pounds of torque. The white and blue cars have a modification to add a few more clutches. The grey and black 5.0’s have stock autos as delivered by Ford. The common component between the four, the Circle-D converters. To add more difficulty to these cars, they are all dialed in on E85. They are all more than capable of being street driven, and all of them tip the scales at over 3800 pounds. They can all potentially blow the doors off of anything Europe or Japan can line up next to them in…at a fraction of the cost as well.

Being in the second generation of the muscle car era, we think a serious question can be asked. How do you decide who will handle the building and tuning of your complex muscle car? How about the guys who are setting the bench mark? History does repeat itself. Just like the old Pony Express, these guys are hunting victories and records. The second coming of the Pony Express has arrived and it is right in front of us.