Strictly Performance Powers their 2011 GT into the 9’s

Since the release of the highly acclaimed new 2011 Ford Mustang GT this spring with its touted new 5.0L engine pumping out 412 horses, performance shops and owners have been raising the performance bar in short order as they continually push to find the limits of Ford’s new and improved Pony car. Both Evolution Performance and JPC Racing have pushed their Mustangs into the 10s. And just this weekend, came the 9’s; courtesy of Strictly Performance in Pearland, TX.

Richard Lelsz drove Strictly Performance’s 2011 GT to a 9.968 at 137.19 miles per hour on Friday night at Houston Raceway Park, in Baytown, TX to become the first of the new Mustangs to break into the 9’s.

Lelsz accomplished the feat with the assistance of an NOS nitrous oxide system pumping in the neighborhood of 250 additional horses through the venomous 5.0L and utilized Strictly Performance’s own nitrous tune. The engine, in fact, is completely bone stock from the factory and only has 500 road and track miles on the odometer. Bolt-on’s include an MMR cold air intake, a custom 3-inch exhaust system, Magnaflow MagnaPack mufflers, and stock headers. On the dyno, the ‘Stang pulled an outstanding 656 horsepower to the tires.

Said Lelsz, “We left the line easy, shifted the car early, we can’t get the rev limiter out of the car. The limiter is set at 7,000 and shifted the car around 6,000.”

The car rides on Bogart wheels and features BMR rear suspension underneath and the only weight reduction the car has seen is the removal of the comfortable factory drive and passenger seats for a pair of Corbeau racing seats.

“I’ve literally only made three passes on the car total,” continued Lelsz. “The first pass we tried to make on the car, it broke the driveshaft. It was actually an aftermarket driveshaft that just had a problem. So we put the stock one back in and took it out there the next day and went 10.94. We came back and dyno’ed the car and did a little work to it to make some more power. We went out there for the third pass and went 9.96. We plan on going out this weekend and turning it up even more and going even faster with it. We can go faster with it.”

{ad:HHP}